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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22888996">Wedding Poisons</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ka_tsu_ra/pseuds/s2039'>s2039 (ka_tsu_ra)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain Harlock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aphrodisiacs, Bottom Harlock, Hurt/Comfort, I have put the dove on life support, Improvised Alien Lore, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Plot With Porn, Sex Pollen, Sickfic, Time Shenanigans, Time Skips, it remains alive and safe to consume, kind. of.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:07:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>58,856</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22888996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ka_tsu_ra/pseuds/s2039</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Harlock failed to rescue Mayu from the Twin Planets and has endured three weeks of captivity alongside her on a remote outpost where he's treated as entertainment for the bitter Mazone who must serve there. When he's finally rescued, three things become apparent: The weeks have turned to years outside of his prison, the Earth is lost, and his capture will have lasting consequences he could not have ever foreseen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daiba Tadashi/Harlock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warnings note: There's a single instance of a rape/non-con threat and related manhandling in the second chapter of this. The perpetrator is immediately dispatched and it will not happen again.</p><p>---</p><p>Cut me, Virtual God! Cut me up, gimme the treatment I deserve! I'm Daz, and I've done it! Done what? Finally sat down and committed to pretend paper the Daiba/Harlock... *THING* that's been gestating and mutating in my brain for</p><p>frankly a disturbing amount of time. It's one of those things you resolve to never actually write down and just let live as a wing of your mind palace that you visit alone while all dressed in black except then it eats in a hole in your skull and tumbles out into your group chat and suddenly OOPS now it's in the series tag for everyone to goggle at.</p><p>I'm not even going to belabor warning and hemhawing about the age gap thing: There's time shenanigans, it's an AU, everyone who touches someone else's special place is unambiguously a grown up even if there's a not insignificant age gap involved. Take it up with all the gothic romance novels I wasted afternoons on during slow shifts at my first job, not me.</p><p>I am more inclined to forewarn of the weird, creepy femdom vibes that will pervade the first few chapters, without which a Leijiverse thing feels kind of incomplete. And of the fact that I will definitely be going back and standardizing how I spell the names of people and places to either Old Fansub Standards or Official Manga Translation Standards, and that I don't want to hear about it either way.</p><p>Enjoy my sins.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been decided within the first week of their captivity that they must be fed separately. Otherwise, without fail, Harlock would give Mayu the bulk of his food. That had been a mistake on his part. He hadn't expected their captors to go to any great lengths to prevent suffering, especially of prisoners, and especially his.</p><p>He welcomed Mayu back into their secured room with open arms, and she ran to him. Her Mazone escort eyed them through her visor, adjusted the gun across her shoulder, and stepped away. The door <em>zizz</em><span>ed shut. He smoothed Mayu's hair. It hadn't been long, just under three weeks. Harlock had endured longer incarcerations under worse conditions.</span></p><p>
  <span>Back in the mines, he'd been expendable and lived in conditions that reflected that. He'd tear his unspooling clothes to bandage wounds and go to bed as hungry and Tochiro would allow every night and no one stepped in. For all the mines were praised for putting convicts to use, they were little more than gradual, plausibly deniable execution. The army wasn't much better, and the aim was the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lafresia's motivations, acted out by the crew of this strange station, were... different. There could be no doubt that she despised him, but she didn't want him dead. Not just yet. The rooms he shared with Mayu were cramped and heavily secured, but they were functional and clean. They were both fed twice daily and allowed regular baths and uninterrupted nights of sleep. He may have received physical checks for what the crew considered impudence, but they had never hurt Mayu. They were both treated with a mixture of disdain and distant curiosity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was the motivation at the heart of it, Harlock reasoned. The Mazone were capable of that very human emotion, even if it took spite and humiliation to ignite it. The prospect didn't unsettle him the way it might, say, Daiba. An adversary that one can understand is more readily bested, and Harlock could understand curiosity very well. Besides, one can stall the curious very effectively by being interesting and they needed time. Rescue would come, he trusted in that, but he had to delay any changes to their situation until then.</span>
</p><p>“<span>I hate them,” Mayu said into his chest.</span></p><p>“<span>I know.” Harlock held her out and offered a smile to her dry face. Her eyes were getting harder, and he knew that he'd made that so by not properly protecting her. It kept him awake some nights. “Did they hurt you?”</span></p><p>
  <span>She shook her head. “They only ever hurt you.” Her little hands tightened on what she could hold of his fingers.</span>
</p><p>“<span>I frustrate them and they don't know how else to communicate with me and still feel they have the upper hand.” He scooped her up under her arms and carried her to the bed. Usually he would put her to bed early on the pretense of having planning to do, sleep on the floor, and wake up early enough that she wouldn't notice. “You don't need to worry about that anyway.”</span></p><p>
  <span>She was sullenly silent for a space. Harlock knew it was hardly fair to tell her over and over not to worry in this situation. “I won't.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had started to lie, too, in small ways. So that he wouldn't worry. So that he wouldn't feel bad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock stroked her head and waited for her to lie down. “They'll come for me soon, so try to sleep. You'll be bored otherwise.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Wake me up when you come back, okay?”</span></p><p>“<span>Of course. I'll tell you a new story, too.” Harlock was more practiced at lying, even if he didn't like to do it. It was easier to tell her that she slept through his return than it was to risk her seeing him in pain. On days when they took Mayu to eat without leaving anything for him, he would invariably be led away to provide dinnertime company to the station's captain. And any orders she had to keep him alive were ever at odds with her cruel streak.</span></p><p>
  <span>A trill sounded from the panel by the door, and Harlock stood straight. “I love you. I won't be long,” he said before turning away to be led, unfettered but flanked by guards, to his dinner date. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He suspected they let him walk unbound to test him, to lure him into making the mistake of bolting or attacking them. Little did they realize, he trusted his crew too powerfully to risk his and Mayu's lives on a slapdash escape plan. It had been three weeks. If Mayu was safe – and she was, in the most objective sense – he could wait far longer. Help would come. They were on their way, and the full force of Arcadia's anger with them. He simply had to bide his time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Convallaria's cabin, if it could be called such, was spacious if stark and strange. It was a vaulted space cloaked in deep greens lit from behind by smoky white phosphorescence that swelled in and out of sight, dark here, light there, in a lazy rhythm that suggested sunlight filtered through swaying tree boughs. The chairs and table were wedded to the floor, rising out of it in cold, graceful forms that offered minimal comfort. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The captain herself was at one with the space, having lived in it for so much of her long life. Her skin – even plants had epidermis – was so pale that it flashed like the light of the full moon under her cabin's traveling lights. Harlock sometimes found himself wondering if this conferred some kind of status among Mazone, the way it did on Earth, but he was usually angry enough in those moments to decide it was probably true and that asking was pointless. Her hair was pruned short under her ears and turned up at the edges. On another person, it might have been cute.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seated at her table, she beckoned for him. Her white hand flashed in the half darkness and his armed companions stepped to the other side of the closing door.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Come, eat and talk with me,” she said. She crossed her skinny ankles, the shiny white material of her boots creaking together as she moved. “It's been too long since I had someone engaging visit with me.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock sat opposite her and surveyed the table. Bread, stalks of some very green vegetable served upright in a narrow bowl, meat, wine, and a single glass. The bread and greenery were served as a courtesy to him. Mazone, when they did eat, preferred meat and fish. Fitting, considering they were botanical creatures. The nitrogen in flesh was probably very satisfying. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Is four days so long?” Harlock asked. He watched her pour the water-clear wine into their shared glass and take the first drink. Even if this wasn't Mazone custom, it was Convallaria's custom, and Harlock had learned early not to balk at it. To drink from his enemy's cup was simpler than being made to drink. And more pleasant.</span></p><p>“<span>You underestimate how dull it is to speak only to underlings.” She passed him the glass. “Even the lower species can be entertaining when there's light behind their eyes.”</span></p><p>
  <span>The wine numbed Harlock's lips. In time, it would work through him and inflame his bruises and sore joints. If he drank enough his insides would cramp and he would break out in sweat. He drank a little to avoid provoking anyone into force-feeding it to him. Just enough to feel the usual alcohol haze and feel a little unwell later. “Fear makes people boring.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>It's truly a shame.” She forked a sliver of meat into her tiny mouth and swallowed it. “You don't fear me, though, compliant as you are. Of all the prisoners I've kept, I was made to expect the most fight out of you.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock drank more. “I'm not foolish enough to draw your ire when I have a child with me,” he said. He leveled the line of his eye over the glass's rim. “And you aren't fool enough to kill either of us.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Yes, yes. I forget that about you.” She took the glass from his hand, drained it, and filled it again. It didn't affect her the way it did him, and she drank it freely and easily. “Such inconvenient attachment to offspring that isn't even an asset to you.”</span></p><p>“<span>Is that the most a Mazone child can be to its mother?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Convallaria scoffed. “Don't think us purposely callous. We are an old race with no real home in this universe. Increasing our numbers is an infrequent, perfunctory process. We do not pair bond like you animals do, either.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Not even for pleasure?”</span></p><p>
  <span>She narrowed her black eyes. “Are you so bored yourself with only a juvenile for company that your animal interests have turned toward me?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>I'm as capable of curiosity as you are.” He tore a piece of bread and ate it. “Of course, your agents entrench themselves on Earth in such a way that I doubt you have any similar curiosities about us.”</span></p><p>“<span>You've met one aberrant Mazone,” Convallaria said, settling in her chair to watch him eat. She never ate much. Once, we he'd asked why, she had replied simply that Mazone 'could' eat. “Such deluded cases are a rarity. Mazone cannot... 'couple,' as you do and the impulse isn't in us.”</span></p><p>“<span>Not at all?”</span></p><p>“<span>Not fruitfully. The higher orders of our race displaced the burden of carrying young onto engineered trees long, long ago. One male put to good use can fertilize an entire orchard, so we need very few of them.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock's curiosity stopped at the definition of 'good use.' He ate more, she drank more, and they let the silence close around them for a few moments. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Here.” She pushed the brimming cup toward him and watched him hesitate. “As a good hostess, I insist.”</span></p><p>
  <span>He drank slowly. Already, he could feel fever pricking up under his clothes and pain working into the spaces between his bones. But he drank. Twice before, she'd become so angry at his reticence that she had him force-fed so much of the stuff that he spent the night vomiting something the consistency of aloe gel.</span>
</p><p>“<span>This is a peculiar wine by most standards,” the station captain mused.</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock eyed her flatly. “I can't say it sits in an Earthman's stomach very well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shrugged the shoulders her dress left bare. “Alas, it's all I have to offer. We are a remote outpost and pleasures are hard to come by. Still, it's a prestigious offering I don't offer lightly. Usually only the higher castes enjoy the fruits of our blossom culls.” She watched his face over steepled fingers. She smiled. “Not every generation of flowers in the orchard warrants fertilizing. Why let them simply drop away?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The revelation that came slowly to Harlock's mind pushed the fever back under his skin for a moment. He tried to chase the chill away with reason. Elderflower wine was common and delicious. Plants routinely drew up nutrients from fallen leaves and fruits on the forest floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her smile broadened. Perhaps she'd been reprimanded for her shows of force and relegated herself to toying with his mind. “Does it shock you to imagine drinking the essence of my sisters and daughters?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Humans eat eggs.” He drank some more – not much, only enough to prove he was unaffected. </span></p><p>“<span>Not your own.” She pushed back from the table, looking down as if to appraise him. “This is an archaic practice, though, this wine. When the nursery orchards were a luxury, my distant ancestors drank it as an aphrodisiac. But that urge is dead in our current generations, and it does nothing for us but muddy our minds and dry out our insides. And all it does for you, an animal with the impulse in you, is make you sick.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Her dark eyes were wild with a frustration that made him uneasy, that more often than not foreshadowed violence he would have to disguise from Mayu. When she moved away from him, he softly exhaled his anxiety and got to his feet.</span>
</p><p>“<span>If we've concluded our meeting, I will leave you in peace,” he offered.</span></p><p>“<span>That would be for the best.”</span></p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He should have eaten more. He could afford to throw up a little if he'd eaten more. Instead, he just sat scrunched under the cool stream of the shower that took up half of their room's cramped bathroom cubical. The water would never get hot, but that was all right. It did what work it could to ease his aches and douse the fever pounding through his body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was bearable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would have been more bearable with Tochiro, the way he'd made the mines bearable. Tochiro would make him eat and sleep, would talk him back to life when he became too angry and sullen to function for himself. Tochiro would have eaten Convallaria's meat and made her kick it out of him if she wanted it back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock drew in a big breath and sighed. His stomach had stopped lurching, but the fatigue and pain wouldn't go. Under duress, bruises lingered. Splits in skin stayed tender and ready to snap open again. He caught water from the shower in his cupped hands and sucked it out. The water was always good, which did make sense. Plants would prioritize something like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, he could ease himself to his feet and step out of the shower without swaying. He dried off and dressed. His clothes were torn and getting dirty again. He could wash them later, when he felt stronger. He brushed his teeth with a strip torn from his shirt and wrapped around his index finger, which had become as routine as playing mother and washing both their clothes in the shower every few days. Mazone bodies didn't automatically soil their clothes, so regular laundry service wasn't a consideration. They didn't have teeth in the traditional sense, either.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Harlock?”</span></p><p>
  <span>He looked up from the sink – he'd gotten down on his knees and leaned his elbows on the basin without really thinking about it – to see Mayu peering through the flimsy sliding door. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you just yet.” He smiled and shook some more moisture out of his hair with his spare hand. “I drank too much at dinner and needed to clear my head first.”</span></p><p>
  <span>She walked right up to him, hands tucked into the pockets of her dress. “Is that why your face is all red?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>It is, that happens sometimes.” He pushed himself up and led her back into their room. “Your daddy's face got redder than this every time we drank.”</span></p><p>
  <span>When she went to their bed, she pulled him along by the hand so he would sit with her. He let her do this, and let her tuck herself up against his side. “You used to drink with Daddy a lot, huh?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Oh, yes.” He smoothed her hair, discreetly testing it for snarls and snags. “When we were younger we would stay up all night some nights, drinking and talking.”</span></p><p>“<span>Talking about what?”</span></p><p>“<span>Anything. Everything. Your daddy was a very smart man, and if he cared about something he could talk about it until he talked himself to sleep. Most of the time I'd wind up just listening to him.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Mayu nodded against his side. “You miss being with Daddy more than I do sometimes, don't you?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Maybe.” It felt unfair to say 'yes.' </span></p><p>“<span>Poor Harlock.” She tried to get her arms around him. “You loved Daddy a lot.”</span></p><p>
  <span>This had suddenly become a very important conversation. Harlock didn't always appreciate how children could do that. “I still do,” he said, returning the embrace. “Your feelings don't go away just because that person's not physically with you.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>I don't know if I like that.”</span></p><p>“<span>It's hard, but it's not bad.” He squeezed her tighter and frowned when something crinkled under his hands. “What's that?”</span></p><p>
  <span>She slipped out of his hold and turned her bright face up at him before reaching into her pockets to produce two sealed foil packages. “Tada!” </span>
</p><p>“<span>Mayu-” She plunked the packages into his lap before he could get the word out. “Mayu, you can't give me your food.”</span></p><p>“<span>It's not mine,” she announced in a proud whisper. “I stole it.”</span></p><p>
  <span>That did bring the smile back to his face, though he tried to rein it in. “Then it's only fair that you get half for doing all the work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pushed the one packet he offered her away. “I stole it for you, though.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>That makes it mine, and I'm giving you half.”</span></p><p>
  <span>This clearly did not satisfy her, but she may have been too tired to argue. They at the chewy, spongy protein material from the packets with serious appreciation. Now that the nausea had passed, Harlock could recognize how empty his stomach was. He was a big man who needed a lot of food to begin with, and the fatigue of captivity and the stress that wine put on his body kept him achingly hungry all through the night after those dinners. Even on the rare occasions he stuffed himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He still balled half of his helping back up in its wrapper and secreted it away in his pocket for later. For when Mayu got hungry again. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Can you teach me a new song instead of telling me a story?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock pretended to consider this. “I'm too tired to be any good for teaching right now, but I can play for you until I'm ready to go to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>No sad songs.”</span></p><p>“<span>Of course not.” He folded the blanket over her twice. It was thin. “Close your eyes and I'll play you the prettiest songs I know.”</span></p><p>
  <span>She sighed. She listened. Before long at all, she slept. Harlock played a while longer, until a deep twinge in his abdomen took his breath away and he elected to stop and rest. There wasn't anything to be done about it, either. He'd learned from painful experience that any attempts at this stage only produced more aloe leaf slime and no relief. Whatever inflammation washed him in fever and grated his bones together made his core muscles cramp up, and the most streamlined solution was to endure it with gritted teeth until the spasms passed and he could sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, curled up on the cold floor beside the bed and effectively alone, he rode out the pain and the gutting realization that he just wanted to go </span>
  <em>home</em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the first rescue chapter. This is also the chapter where the Threats of Rape/Non-Con tag applies. Everything is fine in the end, but please gird up your loins.</p><p>I have nothing else to say about this at this juncture, I literally woke up at 5am and wrote it in one lunatic sprint.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<span>Rise.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock's eye snapped open and the dulled reflexes that had kept him dozing while a soldier stole into their room mustered themselves to bring him straight to his feet with his back to Mayu. This wasn't normal. They didn't come into the room unless one of them resisted their summons from the door, they didn't arrive when the lights were still powered down for the night, and they'd never come in a group of as many as four.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even adjusting for the darkness, the Mazone leveling her gun at him was a stranger to Harlock. Her hair was longer than he'd seen on the other soldiers Convallaria used to herd them around the station, the bulk of it braided and pinned up in a coil at the nape of her neck. She wore earrings, which was another uncommon sight, and had no visor or helmet to round out her uniform. A representative of the collective who needed a face, Harlock reasoned. She had three subordinates to protect her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that Harlock would try anything. Putting Mayu at risk wasn't worth the chance – that might be a tease and a trap, besides – and he didn't trust his hunger-hollow body to be of much use unarmed against four soldiers.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Good,” the stranger said. She didn't drop the barrel of her gun from his chest, but she did take one step to the side so that he could proceed to the door. “Just you. The child's not necessary.” She banged her fist on the inside of the door frame so hard that Harlock jumped and snapped to her toadies, “Quit dawdling, you dregs, the captain's not a patient woman.” They scrambled into and up the corridor.</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock tried, for a panicked instant, to do the 'anything' his mind demanded of him but it was too late and Mayu was already bolt upright in her bed. Staring at him through the dark. He adjusted his stance in such a way that he could at least partly obscure the officer's gun from her.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Harlock.”</span></p><p>“<span>I need to go talk to the captain,” Harlock said. He pushed impatience into his voice. “It's very early, so please go back to sleep.”</span></p><p>
  <span>She must have believed part of it. Her little shoulders slackened somewhat, and she eased back against the wall behind the bed. “You'll come right back?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>It won't take long at all.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Cold metal pushed on the skin of his back through a rip in his shirt. The threat was for him alone, and while it felt very sincere he was too distracted to flinch. The bewilderment in Mayu's eyes had fled, chased off by something that had only recently started presenting itself: Real, intelligent anger.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Don't lie to me!” She fired the words at him and it took a lot of energy he barely had not to recoil. He managed, though, because to recoil would be to admit that he didn't know whether he'd be back soon. Or at all.</span></p><p>“<span>That's enough.” The officer swept him into the corridor and shoved him on.</span></p><p>
  <span>Despair's hold closed on him. He wanted to look back, knowing he couldn't without terrorizing her; he wanted to turn and run back into that room and hold her and press her little face into his neck for as long as he could and wait to die. Because for all he knew, that was all this was. Because it had been three weeks, so long for her because her life was so new, and no one had come and he had no idea where they even were. Because he was slowly but surely starving and the thought of failing to wake up some morning when she rolled over to ask him why he'd slept on the floor again made him want to already be dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He straightened his neck and squared his shoulders, and the grasping cords snapped and fell away from, brittle the way many sharp and unyielding things turn out to be. The desperation was as brief as it had been deep, a flash, a passing feeling that paled in the face of his knowledge. He knew that it was objectively easy, moment by moment, to keep living. He had been alive the whole time that transient agony crushed him and that was immediately available evidence. He knew that he had lived longer through worse. He knew that, as long as even one heart beat aboard the Arcadia, they would stop at nothing to find them no matter how long or how fraught the search.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And in the darkest part of him he gloried in the knowledge that if they did die in this place the crew of the Arcadia – even the Arcadia itself – would come down as the face of Death and drag all of Hell behind them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>“<span>It's not true, is it, what I've been hearing?”</span></p><p>
  <span>They were in the darker, lower levels of the station and the officer was having what she must have believed was a discreet discussion with Convallaria while the grunts looked on and Harlock eavesdropped from his spot tethered to the wall by a long chain that split into two near the end to fasten to the collar around his neck and the tight cuffs holding his arms behind his back.</span>
</p><p>“<span>What is it you believe you've heard?” Convallaria asked.</span></p><p>“<span>Captain,” the officer said. “Please understand these aren't my own words and that I only repeat them to you because you've asked, but it's becoming the common assumption that you're only entertaining yourself here.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock wasn't going to risk turning his head to watch them, but he did hear Convallaria click her tongue and shift her weight. She'd taken his weapons early on and wore them so poorly that they clanked when she moved. “Remind me of your name.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Rosacana. Of the Obelisk. You must know, everyone does.”</span></p><p>“<span>Was it your flippant tongue more than your cowardice that landed you in this place, Rosacana of the Obelisk? Do you forget that you're as much a prisoner as anyone else here? Here, in this oubliette our queen's cored out of the stars?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Rosacana huffed. “It was Eudiko who relayed the information to me. I believe her. I may be a coward who abandoned her post, but I can recognize my kind in you. You aren't doing your job and you're wasting the Queen's time faster than she could waste it herself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hum of machinery filled the space created by that accusation, and Harlock couldn't tell by the energy in the yawning hold if Convallaria was shamed to silence or weighing the ramifications of blowing Rosacana away.</span>
</p><p>“<span>The rest of you, leave,” Convallaria spat, dispelling the silence. “You, coward, stay. Stay and watch how I waste my time.”</span></p><p>
  <span>The hold's population halved, leaving Harlock alone with Convallaria and the mouthy disgraced officer. In the ratcheting tension, his body listened harder. He could practically feel the station move, list. Was it in a tight orbit, or were adjustments of some kind being made in a far-off control room? He'd only ever perceived it as stationary before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Convallaria approached him, a bottle in one hand and the hilt of his gravity saber supporting the other at her hip. “I know you're listening. Have you anything to add?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked over her shoulder, past her, to where Rosacana was reclining against a wall and watching them. “I like her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sharp blow knocked one of his legs back and sent him down onto one knee. He hissed and winced when pain rocketed up from where it made contact with the floor. That would bruise and swell into a limp that would be hard to hide.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Drink.” She shoved the bottle's mouth into his face. It smelled as sweet and inviting as usual and sparse green flecks suspended its clarity shone in the dark hold. If it hadn't been poison, he would have wanted it. “Empty it. I can send soldiers to the girl whenever I want.”</span></p><p>
  <span>This was true, and she was feeling the pressure to demonstrate her authority, so Harlock drank. He drank fast so that he wouldn't have to feel the cumulative effects slowly, so that he could at least enjoy the base act of drinking and deal with the aftermath all at once. It wasn't difficult. There was a good amount of sugar in it, and his body wanted that horribly. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Drink it and keep it,” she said, fisting a hand in his hair. </span></p><p>
  <span>There went his plan to immediately throw it up all over her boots.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In no time, the bottle was empty and Harlock already felt half-sick just from being technically full for the first time in weeks. </span>
</p><p>“<span>What a waste.” She scraped her thumb across his wet mouth. “The husband I took on Earth would say it's like feeding sirloin to a stray dog.”</span></p><p>“<span>Kind?” Pain was already blossoming in the small of Harlock's back, radiating up and around. The way his empty body sucked up the alcohol made it easier to ignore.</span></p><p>
  <span>She made a dry sound like an abandoned laugh. “Rosacana, I'm unfamiliar with your service history. You must understand, the turnover here is so high that I simply cannot keep track of every new face. Did you ever serve on Earth?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Briefly. I was found wanting and... reassigned.”</span></p><p>“<span>Yes. Yes, I wasn't cut out for it either.” She pushed Harlock's legs further apart with the toe of her boot. “Her Majesty has not done such a thing, which is why she believes these things are more interesting than they are. She wastes her time, you say? Yes, because she does not know what she wants.” She leaned in to Harlock's face and he could smell none of the wine's sweetness on her. This was Convallaria stone sober. “She believes there's something secret and special worth knowing about them, about this one particularly – that it's some kind of asset! - but that's only because she hasn't soaked in their presence like we have. They're debased, dumb things that drink poison because it's sweet.”</span></p><p>
  <span>If he hadn't been fighting his body's frantic urge to throw up, Harlock might have said something. As it stood, he did not want to risk opening his mouth.</span>
</p><p>“<span>It makes them easy to use,” Convallaria went on, less frantic but no less bitter. The bottle clunked heavily to the floor. She kneaded the outsides of his thighs and he grimaced in combined dread and pain. “Even the most ancient and advanced living among our race would need to cull an entire generation of buds waiting for farmed pollen, rot the bulk of them in vats and throw the remainder in ripe and raw to sweeten the potion just to... to what? To try and achieve the frenzy you can inspire in one of these animals just by touching or looking at them.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock laughed through his nose and she smacked him.</span>
</p><p>“<span>You think I won't. Don't delude yourself into thinking I can't.” She opened his shirt with the zipper at the very top of his collar and pushed it down over his shoulders. “It would have been easy for that witch in the aurora, and it would be just as easy for me.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Panic boiled hotter in him and fed the fever. His dizzied brain told him the floor was shifting underneath him, creaking, groaning. </span>
</p><p>“<span>I haven't gone mad in my isolation from my people the way that she did, of course.” She touched Harlock's hot skin and grinned when it flinched under her hands. “I haven't convinced myself I love you. I just want to do as I've been asked, which is to keep you here and send back any new information on 'what kind of man you are.' I suspect the answer will be uninteresting, but the finding out might be fun.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock set his jaw and narrowed his eye. The thrum of blood in his ears was killing his thoughts and fever was numbing his perceptions, but he did see Rosacana start to move in that moment when before she had watched and listened quite passively. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sharp chirp and a winking light on the wrist resting near his face stole Harlock's limited attention. She sneered, straightened, and depressed the face of the transceiver to open up the channel. Harlock was so grateful for the cool space between them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned from Harlock and held the wrist radio up to her mouth. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something that was not interference crackled on the other side of the call. “Captain! The station's been pulled free of the bottleneck, something completely disrupted our orbit generator and we've drifted out into free space.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Convallaria stiffened, her wicked playfulness banished. “Disrupted the generator or interrupted the coupling? How long ago did you let this happen that we're already in free space?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Disrupted, you- It's repelling the station, it happened very rapidly, and we're too far gone for me to reestablish a connection to the generator. But, captain-”</span></p><p>“<span>You absolutely deserve to be here! You cavalier, careless little fool!”</span></p><p>“<span>Captain, that's not all, the station has been compro-”</span></p><p>
  <span>A streak of light zipped through the air, through the radio, and through Convallaria's face. She dropped and didn't burn. Rosacana rushed over to effectively ransack her body and take the weapons for herself. Harlock's stomach didn't give him time to process this, only to acknowledge that there were no consequences besides comfort for throwing up anymore. So he did, and he caught his breath, and he let himself feel horrified and miserable and baffled for a moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rosacana freed him. She cleaned his face with a cloth from one pocket on her uniform's belt and gave him water from another. She closed his shirt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He let her help him up and support him on the side where he'd been mashed his knee. She felt cold as the floor to his baking body. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Your girl is safe,” she said. “Nobody would have been allowed to make that transmission until we got her to the ship.”</span></p><p>
  <span>This finally cut through the haze in Harlock's head and he managed to ask, “Who are you?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>My name is Shizuka,” she said. “A friend.”</span></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I do have orders to bring you back <em>alive</em>.”</p><p>Harlock cinched the holster for his cosmo dragoon in place, leaning on a wall to keep weight off his sore knee whenever he didn't need to walk or run. “That will be all the easier to do with both your hands free to defend yourself.”</p><p>“I had heard that you're stubborn,” Shizuka said.</p><p>“And I've heard nothing about you,” Harlock said. He pushed off and waved for her to go on so that he could follow. He had questions, of course, but the dual pressures of time and his winnowing energy made them feel unimportant. Besides that, she seemed genuine enough to not warrant immediate suspicion.</p><p>The corridors were empty, at least for the time being, and the implicit invitation to talk bounced up and down them with their footsteps.</p><p>Comet tails trailed behind the lights along the walls. Fatigue was skewing his vision.</p><p>“I know it's difficult to believe, but I am... I am a pirate.” She stopped in his path to unbutton the neck of her uniform and pull the neckline down to show a skull and crossbones printed on the tight material covering her collarbone. “My people have sentenced me to death, the same as yours did to you. I can never go home either, so I live this life.”</p><p>Harlock nodded once. He wouldn't make her say more. “I understand. Let's go.”</p><p>“It's a good life,” she said.</p><p>Suddenly, the softness around her eyes stiffened away and she raised her gun. Harlock dove for her, whirled, and fired a shot down the corridor at the soldiers storming up behind them. One of them fell with a screech and her cohorts opened fire. They were a small group, just three now with one of them smoldering on the floor, and worse for wear with damaged helmets and injuries that slowed them. A shot whisked by Harlock's side and opened his shirt and some skin. He grimaced. The wound wasn't deep but the pain spread out to the rest of his body like wildfire licking up dead grass.</p><p>On any other day, in better condition, he would have heard them coming.</p><p>The rest fell, cut down by shots coming from behind, just as his body threatened to buckle. The pirates were coming, and that realization straightened him up. Maji came peeling around the corner first. His face flashed from battle fury into joy at the sight of Harlock.</p><p>“Captain!” he exclaimed. He jogged up to them. “You look like Hell.”</p><p>“It's good to see you, too, Maji.” His rippling gaze fell on a long scar that switchbacked up the engineer's arm from wrist to elbow. “When did that happen?”</p><p>“Ah?” Maji followed Harlock's line of sight, shrugged, and waved the question off with the same arm that bore the scar. “Oh, this. We'll catch up later, don't worry.” He turned to holler over his shoulder. “Hey, lollygaggers! They're up here! Let's go home already!”</p><p>Four pirates came around the bend, all armed to the teeth and grinning like children. Just seeing them, four of the forty faces he'd been waiting to see for weeks in that terrible place, renewed his strength enough that he could make the last run for the boarding tube between the station and the Arcadia at full speed.</p><p>Every footfall sent a wave of unsteadiness up his spine and sweat collected between his shoulders and at the back of his neck. The comet storm of hallway lights whizzed by.</p><p>Cool air hissing through his hot head stung the back of his throat.</p><p>By the time they reached the boarding tube's aperture he could only stagger inside. He shut his eye against the bright light in the capsule that would carry them up the tube and home. Maji let him plant a hand on his shoulder for support with no comment. Shizuka came around to his other side and scooped that arm around her shoulders. He didn't protest.</p><p>“Doctor.” Maji was speaking into a radio, that much was clear even without looking. “We're headed up. Be ready to meet us with a gurney.”</p><p>“What? We're already here, but what happened? No one's called in casualties.”</p><p>Maji clicked his tongue. “The captain's in a bad way, okay? Just do it, send somebody to get it.”</p><p>Blindly, Harlock reached down and snatched the radio out of Maji's hand. Maji sputtered, but relented almost immediately. “I've injured my leg,” Harlock said. “I can stand and I can walk. Discomfort is the only issue. Reserve resources for those still aboard the station. Understood?”</p><p>There was silence on the other end, then a vague sound of outcry from far off. Dr. Zero sighed. “Understood.”</p><p>Harlock closed the channel and passed the radio back down to Maji. When the capsule came to a stop, the lurch made Harlock's head swim. The aperture swirled open into one of the Arcadia's hangars, onto a gathered crowd of fifteen at least fifteen clustered together in anticipation. Harlock slipped away from Shizuka and stepped out to greet them.</p><p>Or, he spilled out. Taking that last step sent all his hot blood rocketing down into his feet. A cascade of sparks rained over the scene as he dropped to the floor. Miime darted out from the crowd to catch him, and through the muffling haze swirling between his ears Harlock could hear Dr. Zero admonishing her. It was hard to see through the sparks, so he stopped trying.</p><p>“Put him down! Here, get his head down on the floor. There. Easy.” Bitterly cold fingers touched his neck, his wrist. “Just a simple faint. Probably from dehydration more than anything, by the look of him.”</p><p>One of Miime's slim hands pulled his hand into her lap and held it there, squeezing. He couldn't make the hand do anything. Someone opened his shirt and though he was immediately cold it got easier to draw breath.</p><p>“Just hurt your leg, hm?” Dr. Zero's hands scrutinized the wound in his side and Harlock bit down on the inside of his cheek. “It's not bad. Captain, can you understand me?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“We're going to move you to the sick bay. You need fluids and a thorough examination before you get up again.”</p><p>Harlock smiled woozily. He was losing consciousness again, but not to diving blood pressure. Knowing it was home and safe and no longer needed to carry him, his body was telling his mind, 'Sleep, sleep.'</p><p>It was very persuasive.</p><p>---</p><p>“Harlock!”</p><p>“Oh, goodness.” Dr. Zero jumped off from the stool by Harlock's bedside and put himself between Mayu and his patient. “Someone needs to get her out of here.”</p><p>Harlock turned to look around him and offer Mayu a weak smile. She barreled straight for him before he could make his lungs force out an order to leave. Her face was awash in tears that she rubbed all over the sheet covering his chest.</p><p>“Harlock! I'm sorry I yelled at you, so please! Please, don't die!”</p><p>“Mayu-” Harlock willed his limp arms to curl around her lightly, but Dr. Zero snatched her up and away. She screeched like a scruffed feral cat.</p><p>“Mayu,” Dr. Zero began, his even tone all but drowned under her cries. “Harlock is going to be fine. Miss Namino and me are taking good care of him, but we need space to work and he needs quiet to rest. If you're in here screaming, we don't have either of those things.”</p><p>“It's all right,” Harlock said, pushing up on one elbow to get a better look at Mayu.</p><p>Dr. Zero looked up and fixed Harlock with a hard glance that looked out of place on his round face. “No. It isn't. Please lie back down.”</p><p>“Just for a moment.” Harlock reached his hand out to Mayu, who'd quieted. “Mayu, look. I'm perfectly fine, I'm just tired. You're tired, too, aren't you?”</p><p>She nodded, her mouth a thin, quavering line she couldn't part to speak.</p><p>“And you're hungry?”</p><p>“Mhm.”</p><p>“Let Shizuka take you to the galley for something good to eat, then. I'll sleep, and you can eat. You can visit me after I wake up. All right?”</p><p>Shizuka – in human guise, now, with red hair she wore loose – took the liberty of grabbing Mayu's hand and giving it a little tug. “Come on. I bet we can sneak some sweets before the cooks realize we're even there.”</p><p>This two-pronged snack bribe attack proved more persuasive than the doctor's appeal to reason. Though Mayu didn't exactly run out of the room, she did allow herself to be led away without a fight. With her taken care of, Harlock could lie back again and let the doctor get back to the business of starting a rehydration IV in his arm. If he noticed Harlock wincing when the needle slipped through his skin, he didn't consider it worth commenting on. When he took some blood, again, no comment.</p><p>Harlock could spend the rest of the exam unharassed, lying in blissful passivity while scanning panels craned over his body and the machines monitoring him blipped along. It was all very peaceful, and within a few minutes he'd started to doze again.</p><p>“-but it's gone down fast since I got him in here. He's out of danger now.”</p><p>There wasn't any immediate way of knowing how long he'd slept before his ears tuned in to the conversation around him, but Harlock was still too tired to care. He imagined the doctor would be enduring a steady stream of anxious pirates coming in to check on their captain.</p><p>“She forced him to drink a lot of something humans can't really process. I got the impression she had been doing that regularly, too.” Shizuka was back. It must have been some time since she led Mayu away, then. “Would that have contributed?”</p><p>“It probably didn't help. If it was interfering with his ability to keep food in his body that would definitely cause dehydration and a lot of stress over time. I don't treat a lot of adults with high grade fevers from stress, but it can happen.”</p><p>Shizuka's steps paced around the bed. “You're sure it wasn't toxic to him?”</p><p>“Nothing I've turned up gives me reason to suspect that. Are you that worried?”</p><p>“I don't know. I'm still learning what humans can tolerate, I suppose.”</p><p>Dr. Zero laughed. “We're a hardy bunch. We drink alcohol, don't we? You've seen me drink. And speaking of which-”</p><p>Their voices receded behind the door to the corridor, and Harlock enjoyed another couple minutes of silence before a piping voice out in the hall and far off pulled his attention. Indistinct as it was, he recognized the sound of a child on a wild tear. He sat up in anticipation of Mayu's return, only to be startled to full wakefulness by the sound of a body falling heavily just outside the door.</p><p>“No, no, no! Stop!” The sound of Daiba having a meltdown was as unmistakable as it was familiar. “You give that back and you stay out of there!”</p><p>Harlock frowned. Daiba in the midst of a meltdown was not what Mayu needed. He cleared his throat. It was easier with fluid in his system. “Come in!”</p><p>Mayu did not come flying in to leap on him. Instead, a smaller child with bright gold hair and skin just a shade paler careened into the room with Daiba stumbling in after them.</p><p>“Captain! Sorry!” Daiba's face was red from exertion or humiliation or both.</p><p>The child came to a halt at the edge of Harlock's bed, frozen in an uncomprehending stare that Harlock returned fully. Daiba took this opportunity to snatch them. Something bright and heavy fell from their little hands, but they made no effort to retrieve it. Harlock's presence alone had transfixed them.</p><p>“Gotcha.” While Daiba caught his breath, Harlock took in the sight of him. That he'd traded Kei's green hand-me-downs for white was the first noticeable change. He was taller, though not by much at all, and looked a little thicker around his neck and shoulders. Sideburns (into which he'd probably combed some of his hair to fill them in) had grown near to the bend in his jaw.</p><p>Even if it didn't often feel so, Harlock had been a teenager not too terribly long ago and did remember a lot about those times. This was not a degree of change that happened in three weeks.</p><p>Instead of saying that, his idiot mouth asked, “Who is this?”</p><p>The child shrunk against Daiba's chest and said nothing.</p><p>“This is Zoll.” Daiba didn't meet Harlock's gaze when he answered. “He was born here.”</p><p>Harlock <em>felt</em> himself pale. “When?”</p><p>No answer. No eye contact.</p><p>Harlock looked to the boy instead. “Zoll. How old are you?”</p><p>A smile broke out on his sunny face. He flashed three fingers.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have fed and return to the edit page to offer my thanks to everyone who's been reading along. Even though the manic expulsion of this story from my brain is satisfying on its own, there's something different about getting the impression that my daydreams might be of some interest to others. Since I'd like to try and foster some kind of connection with the people going out of their way to keep an eye on this, I'll be adding actual notes to chapters from now on. Short notes up top, deeper notes down below.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Daiba, just how many children are on this ship?”</p><p>“Zoll's the only one.” He shifted the little boy's weight to his other arm, keeping a firm hold on the coveralls Masu or Maji had probably rescued out of some leftover cache of Mayu's old things.</p><p>Harlock inched back against the head of the bed and leaned his full weight back. The wound in his side pinched, but the pain didn't tear through his body the way it had done before he'd had a chance to rest. The IV line had been removed at some point, too. “That isn't all, is it?” He gave Daiba a few seconds to answer. “His parents are here as well, aren't they? And others.”</p><p>“Yes,” Daiba said. “I shouldn't- Kei was supposed to tell you, not me. I wasn't even supposed to...” His eyes wandered the room and his shoulders bunched in.</p><p>“Lafresia no longer has any need to track down dissidents like Zorba and Lucia, does she?” Saying the words cored him out, but he betrayed none of that. Whatever had happened, Daiba probably carried a heavier burden of shame than the others and didn't need to feel responsible for Harlock's feelings on top of that. “The Earth has been lost.”</p><p>“Not for good.” Daiba finally looked him in the face and his indignity crackled across the connection. He deposited Zoll out in the corridor and hissed him away. He shut the door and stared into it, his back to Harlock. His hands clenched in his gloves and the line across his shoulders stretched very straight and tight. It took several moments for him to collect himself, which Harlock allowed him. “The Mazone have so-” He growled and raised his hands just to throw them down at his sides again. He ground the words through his teeth. “They have so much power. They have so many resources they've sacked from all across the universe. Losing Earth wasn't even a battle, it was an arrangement made behind our backs. It was a merger. It was mutual. It was <em>peaceful</em>.”</p><p>Harlock folded his arms. He was angry, but he was not surprised. “And when you say that it was mutual you mean that the governing heads of Earth found the offer too tempting to so much as haggle, the rest of the planet be damned.”</p><p>“Yes.” Daiba was collapsing in on himself, shoulders slumping and fingers uncoiled. When he turned back to Harlock again and came to stand by the bed he looked familiarly lost and angry. He slumped in the doctor's usual seat. “The SDF is involved. Obviously. Any skirmish close enough to Earth means killing the people we were trying to protect.” As he spoke, his voice thinned and tightened until it finally cracked away. He looked straight down at the floor. The bright overhead lights caught on on the tears that fell onto his knees.</p><p>“Daiba.” Harlock had to lean over to reach for Daiba's shoulder. “How many people are sheltered aboard the Arcadia right now?”</p><p>Daiba scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. He forced his next words out rapidly. “Forty more? There's room, there's food. There are kids besides Zoll, but he's the only one too small to really do anything. I lied about that. I didn't even think when I did that.”</p><p>Harlock sighed and his features softened. “I don't ask to scrutinize how you've all used our resources in my absence, Daiba.” He squeezed Daiba's shoulder. “The Arcadia is the safest place for these people right now. I believe that and I believe you all made the best decisions you could in these circumstances. I can't tell you what I would have done, either, because I can't know that myself.”</p><p>When Daiba slumped forward against his hand, Harlock was momentarily beyond terrified that he would tip forward and onto him. He was not dressed for hugs. Or for anything other than perhaps going for a swim. It was a relief when Daiba straightened up again. He nodded his acknowledgment and laid his own hand over Harlock's. Even through the glove, it was blood-warm and welcome. It didn't last long.</p><p>“Thank you,” Daiba said, rising. He wiped his face again. “I feel like I've embarrassed myself.”</p><p>“It's nothing to be embarrassed about. I weep for Earth, too.”</p><p>“No, it's-” Daiba bit the sentence off there and shook his head. He smiled, his gaze flicking between Harlock's face and the door. He still had a sweet smile. “Never mind. I should let you rest. Welcome back.”</p><p>Harlock returned the smile. Once Daiba had left, he carefully got to his feet and retrieved the prize Zoll had dropped when Daiba grabbed him. It was awkward to stoop down to the floor with his swollen knee wrapped up, but he reasoned Daiba wouldn't want his harmonica to spend any more time on the sick bay's floor than absolutely necessary.</p><p>---</p><p>Doctor Zero was generous enough to let him complete his recovery in his own cabin. That, or he was too drunk and tired to argue. It was already late in the night when Harlock summoned him back from his debauch with Shizuka to thank him for his help and ask for his clothes back. He'd gotten soft pajamas instead. In white, for easy bleaching. This was no problem; Harlock had no real plans at the moment that didn't involve sleep. If the crew had held together for three years in his absence, the world wouldn't come cascading down if he spent forty of the next forty eight hours asleep.</p><p>This number was pure wishful thinking.</p><p>He couldn't sleep. He filled himself up on the porridge and soup Masu sent up for him, and he couldn't sleep. He limped the length of the cabin over and over, contemplating, and he couldn't sleep. Even when he convinced his body to carry itself to the bed, he couldn't be bothered to get under the blankets. He just lied there like he was waiting.</p><p>Notes from Mayu's ocarina floating up the corridor provided a strange kind of relief. It was something to focus on. It was a problem to solve. He took his cloak off the back of the desk chair and his own ocarina from the drawer where he'd left it weeks- No, years before. It was easy to forget. His quarters were clean but otherwise just as he'd left them. Even the liquor cabinet was unmolested, or at least meticulously restocked as it was pillaged.</p><p>They'd never doubted they would bring him home. He drew the cloak around his shoulders and sighed.</p><p>These people were his family. They would never, ever think to leave him and yet all this time it had been his plan to leave them once this battle drew to a close. One way or another. He would go to his resting place, fitting or not, or he would do what he had thought of as releasing them back to the lives on Earth they ought to have. Harlock had never felt <em>shame</em> over that before.</p><p>He fled the feeling by way of ducking out into the hall and letting the autowalk carry him down to Mayu's door. Better to save bending his knee wherever possible in case of an emergency.</p><p>“Mayu?” The song stopped short. He twisted and pulled the switch by the door to open it. Mayu looked up and across the room at him with sheepish eyes.</p><p>“I'm sorry.” Her little bare feet swayed over the edge of the bed.</p><p>Harlock smiled for her and held out his ocarina. “I can't sleep either. Why don't we go learn a new song and play until we're sleepy, hm?”</p><p>“Really?” She hopped down and ran to him. “What song will you teach me?”</p><p>“We're both going to learn a new song.” Harlock guided her onto the autowalk. “I should have learned it a long time ago.”</p><p>“Is it really easy?” she asked, craning her head back to look up at him.</p><p>“It's not difficult. It's a lullaby, so it's fairly simple.”</p><p>Mayu's light smile broadened and cracked into laughter that made her shoulders bounce under Harlock's hands.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You look so silly!” she exclaimed, pulling on the edge of his cloak until it wrapped around her. Her giggles erupted into a frankly unsettling cackle that reverberated up the hall. Well, if the music hadn't woken anybody passed out in the corridors, that must have done it. “You don't even have shoes on!”</p><p>It was pointless to try and hush her. Laughter had become so rare between them in the preceding weeks that it would deflect any resistance he tried to muster. Instead, he laughed along with her and admitted, “You're right!”</p><p>---</p><p>Arcadia's computer whirred awake at their approach and flashed a rainbow of lights to welcome them.</p><p>“My friend,” Harlock said, as casually as he could. There would be time for a proper reunion later, without Mayu looking on. “Will you teach us that song you used to play when Mayu was small? She learns by ear very well. You would be proud.”</p><p>Mayu slipped from under his hand and approached the big machine in halting steps. The light show dimmed down and the sharper blues died back to warmer hues. It was barely enough light for Harlock to find Mayu and lead her closer, where they could both settle on the floor and rest their backs against the front panel of the computer.</p><p>The music was almost inaudible at first, played at low volume under the persistent hum of the computer room. The first few bars were lost, but as the volume climbed the notes and the voice accompanying them filled the room in no time.</p><p>“<em>Goodnight. Goodnight, my darling.”</em></p><p>By now, even Mayu could play without crossing her eyes to look down at her fingers. Harlock made his own effort to play along, but he couldn't manage it the way she did. He was distracted. His throat was too narrow to play.</p><p>That voice was only a recording, and it was years old. A decade old.</p><p>“<em>The most beautiful star in all the world,</em></p><p>
  <em>Close your eyes,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And we'll search for it together on my ship of dreams.”</em>
</p><p>Harlock remembered the day it was recorded, remembered how Tochiro had joked that it would be a real timesaver when Mayu got to the age where teething would make her fussy all the time.</p><p>“<em>Let's resurrect the star of love,</em></p><p>
  <em>That star that shines for us all.”</em>
</p><p>It could play on a loop indefinitely, but that wouldn't be necessary. Mayu lost interest in playing along and tucked herself up after only a few repetitions and was sound asleep not long after that. Harlock stayed awake in the silence that followed, waiting until he was sure she wouldn't stir again if he moved away to the other side of the computer. He draped his cloak over her before he went. The room was large. This was privacy enough.</p><p>“My friend.” Harlock sank back to the floor and pressed his cheek to the steel panel under which Arcadia's circuitry hummed. It was a poor stand-in for a heartbeat. “My friend, I am so sorry.”</p><p>The computer droned softly and blue began to creep back into the room's nightlight aurora.</p><p>In those first weeks he'd spent caring for Mayu on his own, Harlock had learned how to cry quietly and still be satisfied. He could shed a storm of tears without waking her. He could even speak at a low volume without his voice quavering.</p><p>“I couldn't protect your home. Even if it's ever recovered, I don't know anymore if I could even keep my last promise to you.” Harlock stared into the lights and bit down on his lips. “I wouldn't ask you to forgive me, and I can't know yet if I'll break my word to you, but I don't know anymore. I'm not certain anymore.”</p><p>He left the last confession – that this frightened him – unspoken and kept shedding tears silently into the dark.</p><p>“<em>Close your eyes.”</em></p><p>
  <span>Harlock started. It took a split second to realize that the recording didn't have to play straight through.</span>
</p><p>“<em>Goodnight. Close your eyes.”</em></p><p>
  <span>Within moments, the darkness was almost total. Even the safety lights in the corridor dimmed. A little sound tried to struggle free of Harlock's throat, but he swallowed it. He closed his eye, accepting, defeated. If this wasn't forgiveness, it was at least gentle release from a conversation too difficult to have when his body was still trying to fall apart. His body wanted sleep and his heart wanted absolution, and he would take as much or as little of either as he could get.</span>
</p><p>“<em>Goodnight, goodnight, my darling.</em></p><p>
  <em>Goodnight, my love, goodnight.”</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Notes on the title:<br/>The title of this story, <i>Wedding Poisons</i>, is taken from a very particular translation of Charles Baudelaire's poem <i>A Carcass</i>. The partial translation, which appears in French sci-fi novelist Pascal Fréjean's script for his and cartoonist Enki Bilal's 2004 film <i>Immortal,</i> reads like this:</p><p>
  <i>Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul,<br/>that soft summer morning<br/>round a turning in the path,<br/>the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones,<br/>its legs in the air like a woman in need<br/>burning its wedding poisons<br/>like a fountain with its rhythmic sobs.</i>
</p><p>The language calls to mind both the literal wedding night with its allusions to the needy, waiting woman and intimate intermingling as in the case of gases in a rotting corpse's belly or the interdependence that the grotesque and destructive shares with the generative and beautiful to which the entire original poem pays tribute. Baudelaire likens the splitting roadkill to a flower in bloom under the sun and says that the way its form rises and falls with the life of uncountable maggots living in its body cavity gives the impression of 'life by multiplication.'</p><p>That interdependence felt like a good thematic pull for this story in which the entire program is so thoroughly cocked, so I was able to justify keeping the title even after we left the part of the story that involved literal poison behind.</p><p>I'm also just goth enough, still, in my 30s, to title my anime fanfic after an old French poem about roadkill.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A Note on Kei: </p><p>Kei's new little outfit is inspired by Admiral Holdo in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. That's it. I love Kei and I love Holdo.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<span>Captain? Captain!”</span></p><p>
  <span>The voice woke him before the cool hands pawing at his face did. Barely. Harlock breathed in and stirred. His shoulder and lower back complained, so he gave up on sitting up for the moment. As usual, he'd fallen asleep on his right side. He opened his eye on the exhale and tried to bring the blurry silhouette stooped over him into focus.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Daiba?”</span></p><p>“<span>Stay still.” Daiba's clammy hand shifted on Harlock's forehead then mercifully moved away. “Did you fall?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock sat up. “Daiba, I was only sleeping.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>You didn't call my radio from the comm panel in here?”</span></p><p>“<span>Not unless I was sleepwalking on this leg.” Harlock used a lip on the computer's casing to pull himself up and onto his feet. He glanced around and realized Mayu had either been carried to bed or gotten up on her own. Regarding the machine with some suspicion, he asked, “It's late in the day, isn't it?”</span></p><p>“<span>As much as it can be in space.” Daiba joined him in looking up into the darkness into which the main computer towered. “Maybe the computer called.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock nodded. “It's possible.” If that were so, Harlock's friend more likely took exception to him sleeping on the floor than to him sleeping in. “Have you come to understand Arcadia's computer better since I've been away?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Not really,” Daiba admitted. “It plays songs sometimes, but that's the most I ever get out of it. Kei's done the best she can with it, but it mostly does its own thing.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Kei. Harlock let himself smile at how right that seemed. “Speaking of music, Daiba, I have something to return to you.” He turned to lead Daiba out of the computer room only to have his knee try to buckle under him.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Here.” There was so much flustered panic pushing the word out of Daiba's mouth that you'd think </span><em>he</em><span> was the one falling. He ducked under Harlock's left arm to support him and looped an arm around his hips to hold him steady.</span></p><p>
  <span>Warmth bloomed in the center of Harlock's body and radiated out in a stirring ripple that made his skin quake where Daiba's fingertips pressed on him. The feeling struck him hard and sent him standing stock upright. He didn't move away, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was startled, that was all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>People other than Miime weren't in the habit of touching him freely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was all.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Thank you,” he managed.</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba puffed up under Harlock's hold. “It's nothing,” he said as he started them walking together. “Forget about the harmonica for now. It's dinnertime and the doctor will feel better if he actually sees you eating. Besides, everybody's excited to see you.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>All forty and forty of everybody.”</span></p><p>“<span>Heh. Yeah.”</span></p><p>“<span>Will they recognize me dressed like this?”</span></p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Arcadia had not been so populated since her maiden voyage carrying refugees from Heavy Meldar. Children – Harlock counted six of them that day, children from Earth and Tokaga and one boy with blue skin whose origins he couldn't readily place – were more lively than pirates killing time between clashes, and the sound of them was thick in the corridor he and Daiba took to the galley.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not a one failed to notice him passing, though none approached. Daiba hadn't lied when he'd said that Zoll was the smallest, at least. Half of them were pushing the border of adolescence and could take on the real responsibilities of pirate life before long unless circumstances had already brought them to that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inside the galley the atmosphere was more sedate and softened further when Harlock and Daiba walked in. Even the rowdiest table of ship's boys settled into silence, raised fists sinking, at the sight of them. Or, more accurately, at the sight of Harlock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miime rescued them before anyone could jump up and make a speech. Daiba broke off from them to get his own food while Miime led Harlock to a table near the back of the room. His own meal was already laid out, and Miime didn't exactly eat, so there was no gap of time to fill with small talk before he dug into his food. Rice porridge again, a slightly larger portion this time, peppered with strands of chicken and mushrooms chopped so fine he didn't feel any impetus to really chew it. Soy milk with black syrup stirred in. Masu was feeding him like a sick child, which was fine. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Captain.” Kei had materialized at the other side of the table while Harlock was occupied with his food.</span></p><p>
  <span>He clinked his spoon back into the bowl and looked up. She wore red now, in a tunic with a draping neckline worn over white tights. The boots, gloves, and circle scarf that hugged her throat and fell low in the back in imitation of a cape, were all black. “Captain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She crossed her arms over the skull and crossbones on her chest and arced her body forward a little. It was a relief to talk to someone was unconcerned enough with his condition to tease him a little. “Not anymore. I'm more than ready to return to my post at the radar now that my watch relief is here.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>You've done great things in my place, Kei.” He looked around the room before returning his gaze to her. “I owe you as great a debt as any of them.”</span></p><p>“<span>No one owes me anything. I've only been doing what felt necessary and right in the moment. That's all any of us have done.</span></p><p>
  <span>A gentle pull for his forgiveness. Daiba had probably related their entire conversation from earlier and that would weigh on her. “That's the most anyone can do. I never feared any of you would do less.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>We can do more before long,” Kei said. Swooping her cape over the back of a chair, she joined them at the table. “Some lost ground is inevitable in any war. Right?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Yellow light flashed over Miime's skin and glinted off the table's polished surface. She extended the bottle she'd been nursing in silence to Kei. “Enough talking. Drink to Harlock's return with me.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Take an extra pull for me,” Harlock said. He stirred his food. “I can feel the doctor's eyes drilling into my back.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Kei took her drink and Harlock's through smiling lips. When she pulled it away her mouth split into a grin and she beckoned over Harlock's shoulder. “Daiba! We're toasting the captain, come join us!”</span>
</p><p>“<span>I just watched you put your mouth on that.” Regardless, Daiba took the other seat beside Harlock and plunked his tray down. He'd piled it high with big helpings of cold squid salad, fried eggplant, and boiled sweet corn cut into rounds.</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock would have to thank Masu later. She'd picked a night he couldn't have anything substantial to eat and made a common meal out of nothing but dishes he hated.</span>
</p><p>“<span>What's the doctor say again? It disinfects itself?” Kei grabbed a space bowl from the stack in the center of the table and poured Daiba an improvised cup. “Go on, you earned this as much as anyone else.”</span></p><p>
  <span>It smelled sweet. Harlock's curiosity for it vanished. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Fine.” He raised the cup to Harlock, then sipped at it. “You and I can drink together when you've got the doctor's permission. If you want.”</span></p><p>“<span>I would be honored to share a drink with you, Daiba.” Daiba was studiously looking into his bowl between swallows. Even sitting down, he was clearly taller. Sweat had stuck some of his hair to his neck and he was very evidently covering that up with some scent or another. Harlock wouldn't have been surprised if it was just the same alcohol and oils mixture Masu used to fumigate the drying laundry. “I can tell you've become a very capable man.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba coughed on his drink. Kei didn't disguise her laugh at this. “I don't know about that.” He choked down the rest of the bowl's contents and banged it down on the table. “Anyway. Can I get my harmonica back from you after we're through eating?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock raised his own glass to Daiba. “Of course.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Arcadia's engines wasted very little energy. Part of what might have counted as waste wound up harnessed for something Harlock had dearly missed: Infinite hot water, as hot as the safety limiters allowed. The shower and bath off Harlock's cabin ran to Tochiro's ideal bathing temperature, which was just below scalding. It only took a few minutes to wash himself. After that, all he wanted was to lean face-first into his arms folded against the back wall and let the hot water beat down on his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did this for a half an hour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daiba had learned patience in the intervening years, too. He waited in Harlock's combined office and bedroom the whole time, playing his father's harmonica to pass the time even after the accompaniment of Miime's harp playing ceased.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no point in getting a new set of clothes out. He wore the same pajamas out into his room and Daiba was polite enough to not comment on it.</span>
</p><p>“<span>You're sure the doctor won't mind?” Daiba followed Harlock with his eyes from his seat at the little table across from Harlock's bed.</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock went to his cabinet to pour them each a glass of something dark and dry. Little ones, just enough to get a taste of something he'd been daydreaming about. “I doubt he will.” He passed Daiba one of the glasses and took the other to his bed. “He'll be offering me nips the next time I'm in the infirmary, just watch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daiba tried to hide a smile behind his glass. Since it was clear and not even half full, this was ineffective. He drank slowly. Maybe he only had a taste for the sweet stuff. It didn't matter. Harlock matched his pace and poured their second glasses fuller. As they drank, warmth collected under Harlock's skin and Daiba's cheeks painted themselves pink. </span>
</p><p>“<span>So.” Harlock pulled his legs up onto the bed. Either the swelling under the brace Dr. Zero had strapped on his knee was finally retreating, or the drink was deadening the pain. “What became of Convallaria's little dungeon fortress?”</span></p><p>“<span>Blown away,” Daiba said. He looked up from his drink as if remembering something important. “I did the formulas for the worm Namino fed into the anchor satellite to repel the station out of the time bottle.”</span></p><p>“<span>Oh?” </span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba's eyes sparked. Young men love the opportunity to brag. “Time dilation was one of my father's pet interests. He was into pocket spaces like time bottles, too. I guess I absorbed a lot of the theory just being around him.” He thumbed the edge of his glass. “The computer helped, too, obviously.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>It was far from obvious, Daiba. You don't have to downplay your contribution.” Harlock was already sliding down on his headboard. His glass was empty again. “Go on.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba visibly puffed up. “Well-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wet, heavy breath on his face and a panicked thrum in his chest slowly drew Harlock out of his deep sleep. His fingers caught in cloth and held firm and his toes planted in the mattress. He was pressed down hard on the bed, already struggling before the anesthetic of sleep burned off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But when it did.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Ohh...”</span></p><p>
  <span>That was </span>
  <em>him</em>
  <span>. The breath was his, ricocheted back by his pillow and the force of his own exhalations. He wasn't struggling, he was rocking and rutting against the sheets in his sleep. His eye resisted his efforts to open it, pinched tight in concentration and pleasure. There was no real thought; he was still just barely asleep. His hips kept rolling on their own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A thin clattering sound from a few paces away spooked him awake and still him. His hips protesting, he opened his eye a crack to see Daiba groggily rising from his chair to right the glass that had fallen over on the table. He'd been asleep, too. Good. Not as good as him having left hours ago, but good enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock rolled away from Daiba, legs tucked up to disguise the erection pulsing between them, and feigned a harsh cough. If it was the sound him squirming around and making that shameless sound that woke Daiba, best to give the impression he was just sleeping poorly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every beat of Harlock's heart was a two-step stomp on his nervous system. The way Daiba came over to the bed and folded half his blanket over him made him want to shiver straight out of his skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took ages for Daiba's footsteps to find the door. For the door to close. To count to sixty beats of his heart so he could be fully assured that Daiba was good and gone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He flipped over onto his back, gasping like a man saved from drowning, and hiked his pajama bottoms down to his knees. His cock was </span>
  <em>wet</em>
  <span> and his hand moved over it with such ease that the lack of friction was a tease. Softening his breath through willpower alone proved too difficult, so he threw his left arm over his face while his right stroked away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cedar oil and clean sweat. Without thinking, he rooted in the fabric with his nose and let himself breathe as hard as he liked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The orgasm left him feeling like tiny bubbles were popping in his brain. Small sounds caught behind his sealed lips as his hips kept rising to grind into his hand. It took too long for it to stop, so long that he was breathless and twitching by the time the brain bubbles started to fizz.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Light from planets outside his cabin's window played over him as he lied there breathing. Gathering himself. Making sense of things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wasn't it fine? He was still a young man, after all. These things happened. Given the circumstances, it was probably an excellent sign that his libido was returning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was no cause for concern. Surely.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>CUT 👏 ME 👏 VIRTUAL 👏 GOD 👏</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The thousand panes over the greenhouse Lafresia made her entertaining parlor on Earth practically shuddered in their effort to contain the tension inside. The Queen was in a rage. Rightly so, of course. There could never be misjudgment in Her Majesty's fury.</span>
</p><p>“<span>First the loss of the Obelisk, and now this.” She had said the exact same four times over since Rosacana slinked into the towering space for her dressing down. She was pacing the bright green ground, the sheer train of her white dress trailing behind her like a sudden rainstorm. “I don't think you appreciate the compassion I showed you when I threw you down the oubliette rather than order your execution.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Cowed, Rosacana looked past her queen rather than away. “No, I don't.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lafresia swept a hand through the air. “Look at what I've given you,” she said. “I did you a favor by allowing you to live. From those I execute I take away the one thing for which you live, the promise of a home. I would allow you to live on Earth, to enjoy the fruits of conquest won by those better than you. Provisionally.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Under what provision?” Rosacana asked. She had assured her own survival twice now by following her body's unassailable command to flee – once from the mutiny on the Obelisk and again after waking from her drugged stupor on the prison station – but standing in the presence of her queen rooted her in place. </span></p><p>“<span>Kill Shizuka Namino. I don't care how.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Rosacana grimaced. “You would send me to die, then. Would you ask the same of Convallaria if that traitor hadn't sniped her death order out from under you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The attempt at goading Lafresia into giving her a swift end didn't work. The queen waved a hand and went to stretch on a long stone bench under a clump of tall trees. “Convallaria was an idler and a deviant. She was well-suited to her position until I asked too much of her. This might be for the best after all, I think. From all you've told me she would have killed Harlock trying to satisfy her curiosity.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Ambrosia does kill Earthmen, then?”</span></p><p>“<span>I'm not certain.” Lafresia shrugged her bone-white shoulders. “If you feed any animal something that makes it sick long enough it's bound to die. The batches in her provisions were swill, anyway. Even I might get sick drinking it.”</span></p><p>“<span>I've never drunk any of it, good or bad,” Rosacana said. It often did one good to demonstrate deprivation and unworldliness. “I only know that it's too costly to just pour down an animal's throat.”</span></p><p>“<span>I doubt she knew the difference either. The flowers in that trash were empty clones, biological junk with no potency. The makings of foot soldiers.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Rosacana nodded. Now she could look away, gaze around the cathedral greenhouse at the choking vines and fetid blooms. It was a fine place and she knew she was lucky to see it. “Then it wouldn't even have any effect on us, then.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Nothing would, and that's for the better,” Lafresia said in a tone that left no room for argument. “Anything that could encourage the kind of random coupling that animals do would undermine everything we've achieved.”</span></p><p>“<span>It's random?” No argument. Only curiosity. The man she'd married on Earth had always seemed to have reasons for selecting her. They were based on a deception, but they </span><em>were</em><span> reasons. </span></p><p>“<span>They allow their manipulable bodies to drive them into coupling and chance to determine whether they will produce a male or female child. It's as good as leaving it all to chance, whether they feel that way or not.”</span></p><p>“<span>I suppose.” It was bolder, narrowly, than simply agreeing. </span></p><p>“<span>Don't disappoint me by falling to the seduction of that curiosity of yours,” Lafresia said. “Curiosity and cowardice mix poorly, and neither is suited to your position.”</span></p><p>“<span>Yes.”</span></p><p>“<span>If I see you again before Shizuka Namino is dead, I will kill you myself.”</span></p><p>“<span>Yes.”</span></p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two weeks on, Harlock's old clothes were still sliding on him in a way he didn't like. He had the doctor and Masu's assurance that he would start filling out again faster the more real food he ate, but it still made getting dressed an annoyance. But it was only an annoyance. Otherwise, he felt very well. Sleep came easily and food stayed down. He hadn't had any reason to bother the doctor since the morning after his first drink with Daiba, and even then it had only been to give Dr. Zero the good news that he was already feeling much more lively.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had not offered further details, but the bare suggestion was enough and the doctor was pleased.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was for completely unrelated reasons that Harlock wouldn't be inviting Daiba for a drink again any time in the near future. The whole day after, Daiba had been plagued with a headache that kept him distracted at his post. Clearly, he'd drunk as much as he did just to impress Harlock. Older or not, he would have to learn greater restraint before he could be a good drinking partner for anyone but Miime.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There wouldn't be much time to spend idly drinking for a long while anyway. Idle days aboard the Arcadia had become a rarity in his absence and that afternoon was no exception. The refugees brought more than their bodies and families to the Arcadia. Many brought ships and those needed as much upkeep as Arcadia's own planes. They swelled the fleet and necessitated cross-training of new and veteran pilots. Daiba's Bullet Squadron had grown by fifty percent.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Nem!” Daiba's shout rattled the hangar and a Tokagan girl running over to meet her squadron leader flinched back a full foot. “Go around! Don't ever walk behind the planes during a drill. Do you want to get flash fried?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock watched the girl scatter around the plane, away from the engines. She aborted her run toward Daiba, clearly spooked. “How old is that one?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Thirteen. She's serious about learning, but she's still a scatterbrain.” Daiba dropped his voice. “She's from a slave colony. She always runs over like she has to report to me whenever I'm in sight.”</span></p><p>“<span>You didn't immediately adjust to the autonomy the crew enjoy here, either.” Harlock glanced down to watch Daiba's face. He was still quite short compared to Harlock, as most people from Earth were, but he had at least grown to reach his collarbone. He was frowning.</span></p><p>“<span>That's not the same, though.”</span></p><p>“<span>It isn't the opposite.” Harlock put a hand on Daiba's shoulder and was secretly relieved to have the material of his glove between his hand and the new breadth and firmness there. “Don't you still do things to try and gain a superior's approval?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba shrugged his hand off. “I figured you'd think it was something like that.” He drew into himself and the pout he tried to pull off as a sneer made the man look disarmingly like the boy Harlock had known. “It's been years out here. Can you blame me? I got a chance to do something I'd been thinking about for years, and I didn't want to stop.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Ah.” Harlock hoped the scarf he'd tied on that morning would disguise the weird warmth creeping up his neck. He offered Daiba a half-smile. “I missed you, too, Daiba. All of you, even if it didn't take years.”</span></p><p>
  <span>This seemed to placate him for the time being. He sighed and smiled. He crossed his arms. “We're low on materials right now. Up for a salvage mission?”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Some kind of space romcom, apparently.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am fatigued from carrying bags of Apocalypse Rice to grannies's cars. Enjoy this horny mess.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Mayu wouldn't let Harlock go. She'd latched herself onto his hand and was leaning back as if she could pull him back into the galley with her weight alone. It wasn't working.</span>
</p><p>“<span>You can't go! It's a trap, I know it is!” </span></p><p>“<span>Mayu may be right,” Miime said. She plucked Mayu up regardless and Daiba was relieved he didn't have to be the one to do it. “Still.”</span></p><p>“<span>It's not a planned mission and there's no reason they'd know we're out here in the first place,” Daiba said. It was hard to feel like a rational adult and not a larger child feeding into an argument. “It'll be fine.”</span></p><p>
  <span>She was crying again. She spent a lot of time crying. She struggled against Miime's awkward cradling. Daiba stepped back a few paces when Harlock went to comfort her. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Mayu, I can't just stay inside forever. Doesn't it make you sad to think about that happening?”</span></p><p>“<span>No.”</span></p><p>“<span>It really doesn't?”</span></p><p>
  <span>She huffed and turned to squash her face into Miime's chest. To Daiba's eyes, this was going nowhere. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock didn't appear to mind. He patted Mayu's head, smiling to himself. “I know you want me to be safe, Mayu.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>He's going with me, you know,” Daiba cut in. “We'll keep each other safe. Okay?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock's smile didn't waver, but his tone soured. “Neither of you should have to worry about taking care of me,” he said. “It's not fair to ask that of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he occupied the same level of responsibility as an eight year old. Fantastic. Daiba tried to look to Miime for some kind of defense, but she only offered him a discreet shrug. No sympathy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Best to just scrape up his dignity and head down to the hangar. “Yeah. Well. I'll meet you in the scrapper.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The scrapper was half-scrap itself, the other half being a modified ore-hauler that used to shuttle between asteroid mines before escaping workers pressed it into service as a life raft. It had made recovery of gravity-bound materials a lot more streamlined in the year or so since Maji and his engineers cobbled it together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>'Cobbled,' wasn't the most generous language, but it was accurate. As useful as the scrapper was, it was also a piece of junk with which Daiba was having a very serious, very silent argument when Harlock decided to distract him.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Daiba.”</span></p><p>
  <span>He flipped his gaze from the yawing gauges and the yoke that he really, truly hoped was actually communicating his commands to the stupid machine. “Yep.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>You don't have any ulterior motive for inviting me on your spur of the moment salvage trip, do you?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba's head lit up in the same shade of red – and at the exact same instant – as half the indicator lights on the scrapper's systems display. He pawed at the controls, grateful for the excuse not to look over at Harlock. “What? No!” Did it count as having an ulterior motive if he was doing this instead of just saying 'I missed you,' because saying that was too embarrassing? Especially now that Harlock had said it </span>
  <em>first</em>
  <span>. “I just wanted to- Aw, crap.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They'd entered the old colony's atmosphere and the scrapper hated atmospheres. It hated just about everything, really! Sometimes Daiba imagined it hated him most of all. He brought his open palm down on a cluster of buttons and the whole rig made a horrible popping sound. The displays snapped back to green and Daiba let his hot head fall back. The engines shifted from whining to humming.</span>
</p><p>“<span>It always does that.” It didn't. But it usually did. “It's fine.”</span></p><p>
  <span>It probably was.</span>
</p><p>“<span>I didn't say that to upset you,” Harlock said, utterly unfazed by the scrapper's theatrics. So they weren't going to talk about the averted emergency instead of Daiba's motives. Great. Daiba could just keep sweating and look around for a place to touch down at the same time. “I suppose you've had time to forget about the time I tricked you into that dogfight.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just that.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Nope.” The red lights made a return and Daiba growled to himself.</span></p><p>“<span>You've changed a lot since then,” Harlock said. He either trusted him entirely or wasn't paying any real attention. “It's been a real shock coming back.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba eased up on the yoke and sighed. Safe spots to touch down such a big pile of space junk were a real scarce commodity on the tiny converted planetoid. What space between the toppled steel structures wasn't flooded was eroded and deeply pitted. He looked sideways at Harlock. “Has it really? Because I can't tell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock turned his head just enough to let Daiba see the look in his eye that said either 'Go on, that's not enough for me to work with,' or 'I am </span>
  <em>not</em>
  <span> interested in your teenage nonsense right now. I have deep things to think about and they're not this.'</span>
</p><p>“<span>You don't even act like anything changed. You did one thing once, and now that you did that all you do is treat me like a kid.” </span></p><p>
  <span>Recognition registered on Harlock's face as a frown. “I only said that I don't want you to feel responsible for me. You aren't, no one is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daiba's right hand had left the yoke at this point. He need it to gesticulate. “And you can get away with being responsible for everybody else? Is that fair?”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Daiba.” Harlock's expression hardened and he leaned over into what little personal space the cramped cockpit afforded Daiba as the pilot. Harlock's eye was fixed on him with an intensity that made his heart smash itself into the roof of his mouth. He leaned hard to the other side and tried not to yip in alarm.</span></p><p>
  <span>The ship rocked and spun as one of the wings it used to make sense of operating within an atmosphere clipped a stray spire of metal that hadn't yet fallen away into the black water. An alarm shrilled, and so did Daiba when the captain effectively jumped halfway into his lap to wrestle the controls away from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if Harlock was on the slim side for a man his height, his skeleton alone was way too heavy to be jerking around on top of Daiba in a spinning space jalopy. He was relieved for a multitude of reasons when Harlock brought the scrapper – loudly, spark-sputteringly – to a kind of rest one of the spits of dirt that dotted the sullied lake that had overtaken the majority of the colony's surface. True to form, Harlock had at least brought them down on one of the islets closest to the steel shore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While Harlock caught his breath, Daiba was holding his. Doing that was supposed to curb... certain physiological reactions that wouldn't be helpful at the moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The visceral fantasy of grabbing him and turning him around did not respond to oxygen deprivation, but a fizzing on the scrapper's radio did bring a wash of shame that dampened it somewhat.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Uh, are you guys okay down there?” It was Yattaran, sounding about as invested as he did in most things. “I got some automated distress blips up here.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock's weight and warmth left Daiba in peace while he fiddled with the radio. “The lefthand wing was damaged during our final approach. We have the tools to make the necessary repairs in under an hour if the scrap heap turns up usable parts.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Good luck getting to it, I guess. Sure you don't just wanna come home?”</span></p><p>“<span>We can swim.”</span></p><p>
  <span>True, they could. They'd outfitted themselves for it in suits that could insulate their bodies in the cold water and seal on to rebreather helmets that would help if they needed to spend time noodling around under the surface. Daiba had no intention of doing that, but they both took their helmets from the cargo net in the back of the scrapper's cockpit anyway. Daiba strapped on the one pack they had between them before Harlock could notice and scoop it up himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Outside the cockpit was a weird, cold world of frosted steel and dark water that reflected a pale gray sky in the places not overshadowed by twisted towers. It might rain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The water was just about as cold as the air that left frost blossoms on the steel and Daiba hissed when he waded into it. It cut straight through his suit, and he was still dallying around deciding whether or not he could tolerate it while Harlock slipped right in and took off for the shore a hundred yards off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The corner of Daiba's lip twitched. That wouldn't do. He plunged forward and gasped when the cold closed around him. He made himself kick and pull himself along. Within moments, his working body warmed itself under the suit's insulation and he forgot his hesitation. The water was deep and his limbs cut through it without obstruction. He overtook Harlock's pace as they neared the shore, climbed onto the creaking metal platform, and sat there kicking his feet in the water like a proud child for all of ten seconds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever steam had given Harlock his initial head start was gone and he was flagging fast. The glass on his helmet was fogging up and his movements had lost coordination. Daiba paled. He had only won his little imaginary competition because something was wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daiba threw himself back into the water and waded out as far as he could. He struggled the pack off his back and slung it forward. It was a poorly improvised life preserver at best, but it was mostly lightweight foam and even with the tools inside it sort of floated. Harlock didn't so much grab it as collide with it. Daiba reeled him in. He could </span>
  <em>hear</em>
  <span> him breathing through the glass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took some doing to get him onto the platform. Even buoyed by water, someone closer to seven feet tall than six would not be light under gravitational standards close to Earth's. Daiba led him to a clear space where they could both crumple down and catch their breath. Harlock slumped onto his back, half propped up on his elbows. Daiba came around on his sighted side and flipped open the release valves on his helmet to pull it off. Harlock's hands pushed weakly at his.</span>
</p><p>“<span>I've got it,” Daiba said. This looked bad. Sweat and condensation from his breath had stray strands of hair clinging to Harlock's flushed face. Daiba got on his knees and pulled Harlock over so he could lean back on his chest. He slipped his fingers under the neck of Harlock's suit to feel his pulse. Fast and shallow. How did he overheat so fast in that cold water?</span></p><p>
  <span>Pressure jabbed into Daiba's side as Harlock tried to elbow away from him and get to his feet. He had limited success. “Daiba, I'm fine,” he said. He swiped Daiba's hand away from his neck. “Give me a moment to rest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anger flared in him. He lurched forward to grab Harlock by the shoulders and pull him back, shocked that he could do it. Harlock pulled at his hold and glowered at him over his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daiba held him fast. “Stop it! Aren't I your friend? Aren't I a man?” Hurt and panic were bleeding through with the anger. “Let me help you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock stopped fighting him. He let Daiba pull the zipped down on his suit and let him peel it forward and off his shaking shoulders. He even helpfully if clumsily shucked his own gloves off so that they could get his arms free.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That seemed to help. Harlock's breathing slowed and deepened as they sat there, his body losing its panicked tension. He was a warm, wet weight piled up against Daiba and under other circumstances that would have been wildly distracting. As it was, it was only moderately distracting. Monitoring Harlock meant looking at him, after all, and Daiba hadn't ever gotten a close look at the starbursts and comet tails breaking up his skin before, or at the way he was shaped under his cloak and dark clothes. He'd always assumed his captain would be very heavily marked but it was a still a striking sight up close. So many were clearly the remnants of brushed with death. Not all of them were old.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Maybe we should postpone the material pick-up,” Daiba said. “We don't have to tell anybody why.”</span></p><p>“<span>I appreciate the offer,” Harlock said. He let his eyes drift shut and smiled. “This wasn't all that necessary, then, I take it.” </span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba fumbled his own helmet off to let the air cool his face. “No,” he admitted. “I didn't expect this to happen, though.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Naturally.” Harlock shifted on him. “I didn't give you any reason to. I haven't been honest with you.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba's brows knitted up. “What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock was looking straight ahead, across the water. His skin was starting to quake in the cool air, the flash fire fever gone. “A poison in the food the Mazone fed me is still working its way out of my system,” he said. “The doctor knows, but the only help for it is time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Queasy shame knotted in Daiba's stomach and he cringed. The anger he'd expected to feel never came. “I wouldn't have brought you if I knew that. I'm sorry.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>It's all right,” Harlock said. His head lolled back to land on Daiba's chest and Daiba's heart thumped. He was really, really... “You were right. You did keep me safe.”</span></p><p>
  <span>He was really, really going to drop dead if Harlock said anything else like that or moved around any more. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Well,” Daiba managed. He took his radio out with one hand and left the other glued to Harlock's bare side. “Mayu wouldn't let me live if I didn't.”</span></p><p>“<span>She's like her father that way.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba wouldn't know, but he nodded anyway. He pushed a button to open the channel on his radio, then said, as an afterthought, “I'm calling the ship, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock levered himself up and grabbed his gloves. “Let me get dressed first.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daiba yipped and dropped his radio. It was the fastest way to close the channel, which he realized after the fact would make anything overheard all the more suspect to whoever happened to be at the radio. He hoped it was Kei. God, he hoped it was Kei.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They made themselves presentable in silence before Daiba made the final call to the ship's bridge with some story about being unable to find anything appropriate to fix the scrapper. A plane would come down with a line for them and the engineers would worry about the scrapper later if they got bored.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Daiba could spend the rest of the afternoon wringing out his accumulated frustrations in private and scheming some other way to get time alone with Harlock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To ask questions, obviously. Harlock had spent lots of time with their enemy. That deserved investigation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was all.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A note on the update schedule:<br/>Now that I've laid some kind of foundation I can kick back and do regular degular updates on Mondays. That is, unless work completely consumes my life. I hope someone somewhere is having fun with this.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harlock resolves to quit avoiding the subject of whether or not his new feelings for Daiba are influenced by the poison lingering in his system. I'm sure no obstacles will present themselves.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes yes yes yes it's late. Can you blame me? There's mass chaos. I work at a small family-run grocery store and everyone's bought all our rice and beans and then some. My body is a shamble and my brain is full of bees. But here's the chapter, because I can't stay away.</p><p>Holy shit, this managed to get a hundred hits when I wrote it for mmmmmmmmmyself and maybe 3 other known living humans.</p><p>It does occur to me that this thing is pushing 20,000 words and is not even close to half-finished, and that I've set up a whole bunch of payoffs that will take a good while yet to reach.<br/></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Between a body that wanted sex and a body that wanted an orgasm, the body after an orgasm was the easier to manage. A body that wanted an orgasm could meet its own needs on its own time and would happily rest, sated, after that. A body that wanted sex was different. It wanted the warmth of bodies besides itself – one at the very least – and entanglement in that warmth. It wanted to hold and be held. It wanted scent, and tacky skin, and the grit of hair under its roving palms. It wanted someone else, sometimes anyone else.</p><p>Harlock's body wanted sex, and not just with anyone. It had churned with that wanting for weeks, and for weeks he had treated the problem like a libido surging with fresh energy from food and real rest. This had proven easy enough at first. The undeniable stage of arousal only presented itself when he was alone and had the space and time to let his thoughts wander and his blood travel freely. He would masturbate, which was perfectly natural and familiar even if the urge hadn't been strong or frequent in him for some time.</p><p>Gradually, his body had demanded more. Two orgasms before it would let him sleep. Three. To be fucked or at least filled, not just stroked. Daiba, or at least the thought of him.</p><p>That morning, in an attempt to get his day started on time, he had caved to his body's demands as deeply as he could manage. His fingers would do. He was in too much of a hurry to improvise anything else.</p><p>As for Daiba, the memory of his cock pressing half-hard into the meat of his thigh after that rocky landing on the colony had been nagging Harlock for days. Over that time, the memory had fermented into fantasy.</p><p>He was flipped around to face Daiba, straddling his hips, bending his neck to keep from jarring his head against the cockpit's low ceiling. Daiba was breathing hard on his chest and fucking up into his ass so hard and so deep that the head of his cock could knead out the ache Harlock's fingers never seemed to quite reach.</p><p>
  <span>When he imagined Daiba unloading his cum inside him, he came so hard that he cried out before he could curl over and bury his face in his mattress. He bit down hard to silence everything in his room but his harsh breaths and the wet sounds of his fingers working inside him. </span>
</p><p>Then, he was still until it was time to slide out of bed and go take a shower. He didn't linger in the shower, instead choosing to use his remaining early morning alone time slumped at his desk with a glass of wine. Normally, he would eat first.</p><p>He took a deep drink of the same wine he'd brought out for Daiba that night. He returned to this one often. It was dark and dry and harsh, so removed from sweet poison.</p><p>And it made for good memories.</p><p>Harlock's sigh fogged the inside of his glass.</p><p>He was so easy. Or perhaps 'decisive' was the better word. His heart sighted the kind of man it could love and it decided on him. It was that way with everyone to some extent; he judged character and fitness swiftly. Usually well, too.</p><p>Usually.</p><p>His heart loved decisive, passionate men. It liked the contrast of a temper that ran hotter than its own, it liked an open heart that offered itself up to be understood without even making the invitation. Intelligence helped. A quick, creative mind excited him.</p><p>All those qualities had been present in Daiba all along, even when Harlock first knew him. Harlock couldn't delude himself into being truly surprised that he found Daiba's character, now matured, alluring.</p><p>The intensity of the physical fixation did give him pause. He had reason to be concerned, considering his other... symptoms, hadn't fully abated either, even if the poison's ostensible effect hadn't made itself evident until Harlock was free. The re-emergence of the fever was worrying above other, less dangerous effects like his body continuing to intermittently produce the aloe sludge. The way his body flamed in close contact with Daiba and cooled under the same circumstances was confusing at best.</p><p>Harlock shifted in his chair and took another deep swallow. It had been nice to be held, even roughly, even for a moment. To be kept in place by another man was different from the times Miime would pull his liquor-heated head onto her knees while they talked. There was an excitement there, an invigoration.</p><p>Harlock let himself stare into the starfield beyond his cabin's windows. It was a beautiful morning in space. A routine absence of inclement weather – or any weather at all – assured that on most days. Out in the remote reaches of space there was no trash. The crew had picked a fine place to recuperate and regroup before their inevitable return to Earth's sphere of influence.</p><p>He put his glass aside and got up.</p><p>He did care for Daiba. In a way, that made the enduring burn under his skin, always waiting for another chance to flare up and consume him, even more worrying. If his body was crying out for another body, any body, that would be one thing. It would be easily remedied. Bodies were readily available, no strings attached. And his heart had already tied itself to Daiba, who came with a set of strings all his own already. Harlock didn't want to risk... <em>using</em> him, especially if the impulse chilled once satisfied. The possibility that these feelings, even in part, were artificial disturbed him.</p><p>He swept his cloak into its usual place on his shoulders and strode to the door.</p><p>It was his policy, whenever he had even the most remote option, to meet uncertain feelings with curiosity rather than fear. At present, his best chance at satisfying that curiosity without hurting Daiba would be questioning Shizuka Namino.</p><p>---</p><p>Miime found him before he found Shizuka Namino. She had a way of gravitating in his direction when he needed to talk even when he didn't yet realize it. It didn't even frustrate him. Of the living bodies aboard the Arcadia, Miime was his oldest friend and knew him most deeply.</p><p>It came as no surprise when she glided up to him in one of Arcadia's long, empty corridors and said, “Harlock. You're concerned about Tadashi Daiba, aren't you?”</p><p>Harlock made an affirmative sound in his throat and kept walking. Miime matched his pace.</p><p>“It isn't like you to hesitate this way,” Miime said. “Surely you understand the kind of man he is. As soon as he realizes you're avoiding him, he'll be hurt.”</p><p>“I remember the boy he was very freshly,” Harlock said. “I have reason not to trust my impulses toward him.”</p><p>“That alone isn't a reason to dodge him at every turn,” Miime said. “You loved an older man yourself, long ago.”</p><p>Harlock eyed her. “To no good end,” he said, hoping his tone would put that discussion to rest. “And that isn't why.”</p><p>“Then why?” She would sometimes ask him 'why' when she knew his reasons perfectly well, but this time her curiosity was genuine. Why shouldn't it be when Harlock had kept his suspicions to himself and when Miime knew half the truth about his time as a prisoner at best? “It can't be you fear rejection; Daiba's ability to disguise his feelings has not improved with age.”</p><p>“<span>Daiba will always be an open-hearted man,” Harlock conceded, not bothering to conceal the fondness in those words. He did like that about Daiba, that there was no mystery to him. If Daiba was angry, you knew it. If he was infatuated with you, you knew it. That Daiba hadn't sidled up to him in the time it took for Miime to whisk him away was a real wonder. Indeed, the corridors were remarkably empty of well-wishers and shadow-tailers. His presence had become routine again, finally. “I wish that my own heart didn't decide so readily.”</span></p><p>After all, it wasn't his body that allowed Daiba to stay in his room that night and talk him to sleep. It wasn't his body – not entirely – that had crumpled under Daiba's kind demands and allowed himself to be cared for. Just for a little bit.</p><p>“I don't,” Miime said. She pinged her fingertips along the bottle she'd emptied while Harlock was thinking. “You love fiercely, especially the men you make your precious friends. I've missed seeing it.”</p><p>“You aren't the only one who's missed it,” Harlock admitted. His chin dipped to touch his scarf. “I will talk to Shizuka Namino before I say more about this, though.”</p><p>Miime lagged behind him. “Oh.”</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>“Shizuka Namino departed for... They called it a fact-finding mission, around two hours ago.” As if to compensate for her lack of visible pupil and iris, Miime directed her face out of Harlock's gaze to indicate her reluctance to answer.</p><p>“Why was I not informed? Who are 'they?' Where has she gone?”</p><p>“I am an alien, just like she is,” Miime said, conviction returning to her voice. “Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I understand her feelings. She and Daiba asked me not to tell unless I was asked, and I've kept that promise.”</p><p>A less composed man would have looked as apoplectic as Harlock felt. He could contain about half of it. “What's Daiba doing with her?”</p><p>“He is her friend,” Miime said, blandly delivering a fact that had escaped Harlock's notice entirely. “He did not want her to go alone into something that might be a trap.”</p><p>“Where have they gone? Why?” Harlock had already redirected his course to the tubes that carried the crew from the upper decks to the hangar in the event of an emergency scramble. Miime followed him.</p><p>“To Planet Kulonga.” Harlock had some familiarity with the little jungle planet. It was mostly livable, if wild, and might have made a pleasant escape for Earth's wealthy parasites had it not been so remote. Miime caught Harlock's shoulder just as they reached the bank of apertures into the hangar. “Shizuka Namino has gone to meet with another defector and her family. At least, that's what she believes she's gone to do.”</p><p>Harlock's nose wrinkled. “A green world like that would be a fine place for Mazone to set up a little homestead. If that's the truth of it, of course.”</p><p>“Of course.” Miime looked guilty for an instant. Harlock could never fault her for allowing this. The isolation that Shizuka surely felt as the sole Mazone aboard the Arcadia must have been very familiar to her. Even as an exile from Earth, Harlock could never meet her where she stood: As a person with a different body, brain, and history from every one of her friends.</p><p>“As always.” Harlock switched one of the apertures open and hoisted himself in. He fit. Mostly. Hanging onto the lip, he looked out at her. “Don't let it weigh on your mind, Miime. We'll be back, or we'll send for the rest of you.”</p><p>He saluted, and then he dropped. It took no time at all to ready himself for flight; three weeks couldn't dull his familiarity with suiting up and running a swift systems check. He was off within minutes and guided by way of the craft ID on Daiba's plane to their landing spot not long after. They'd only taken one fighter, and Harlock couldn't decide if this was a wise conservation of resources or a foolish invitation to enemies to destroy their one way off the planet.</p><p>No matter. It was done. He made a brief sweep of the swaying greenery that crowded the little clearing that had become their landing strip and, finding nothing amiss, took some time to drag some denser clumps of the foliage over to camouflage the fighters. It was a small gesture, but quickly accomplished. And some measure of precaution was better than none at all.</p><p>Still, perhaps even this quick and immediate action had been taken too late. As Harlock worked, he became aware of an angry, purposeful rattling in the cockpit of Daiba's fighter. He drew his gun and approached the plane in long, deliberate strides. He was hoping for an animal trying to scavenge over a saboteur, but the gun would prepare him for the worst of either scenario.</p><p>He was not prepared, in the instant he pushed the windshield open, to be bowled over by a pair of howling children.</p><p>“We're sorry!” Mayu and Zoll cried in unison.</p><p>Harlock strained to sit up on the spongy ground with Mayu anchoring him by the neck. He peeled Zoll off his chest and set him to one side, where he sank to his knees and bawled. Clearly, this was not the result in a lapse in Daiba's judgment. They were regretful stowaways.</p><p>“Never mind that,” Harlock said. He shook Mayu off and stood to climb into the plane and power the radio on. “We'll deal with how sorry you ought to be when I get back to the ship. Right now, all I'm going to do is call someone to bring you two home.”</p><p>Zoll wailed. “But I gotta pee!”</p><p>Harlock flung his hands up. “Do! You're three, you don't need my permission!”</p><p>When no retort came, when both the children snapped from shrieking to silence in a moment's space, a queasy unease bubbled up in Harlock's chest. He let his hand fall from the radio console to his holster.</p><p>“I wouldn't invite anyone else down here if I were you,” said a voice from the coiling forest's edge. A woman with bright blue skin and black hair that she wore chunky and short stepped into view. She had a rifle, but the barrel wasn't leveled at anything or anyone important. “Please understand, we're trying to keep our profile as low as possible. One small craft was enough. We don't need a battleship advertising our location, even all the way out here.”</p><p>Harlock stepped down from the cockpit with empty hands and put himself between the stranger and the children. “I assume you're the one that Shizuka Namino came to see.”</p><p>“One of them,” the woman said. Some of the viciousness left her face and her body softened. “I'll take you to the others, Harlock.”</p><p>“And to whom do we owe this invitation?” Harlock asked as he followed her into the bush. The kids followed without being told.</p><p>“If that's your roundabout way of asking my name, it's Cypri. As for the invitation, you can thank my wife Radia when we arrive.”</p><p>That threw Harlock. It was evident that Mazone could love, even if their society considered the instinct a kind of perversion, but he hadn't considered that they might marry. And not even women on Earth had wives. Not anymore.</p><p>Maybe the outlaw spirit of space effected even Mazone, if it got the chance.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Harlock walked onto the shady settlement with Zoll on his hip and Mayu tailing him with the helmet from his flight suit in her little hands, Daiba was seated by the open curtain doorway of the cob structure that served as the family's living quarters. His first reaction was minor panic. Not only had Harlock busted them, he'd brought kids along for reasons Daiba couldn't even begin to guess. Their hostess wasn't taking the intrusion too badly, which he supposed was good. She had her rifle over one shoulder and walked in step with Harlock and the kids. If she thought they were a threat, she was being flip about it.</p>
<p>“I believe you know this gentleman,” Cypri said. She unfolded a long hand to gesture to Harlock.</p>
<p>“We do,” Shizuka said. She rose from her seat beside Daiba and waved for Mayu to come closer. When she didn't, Shizuka diverted her attention to Cypri. “Your wife and boy haven't returned. Did you see them at all?”</p>
<p>“No.” Cypri went to the smoldering fire pit at the center of the space her family had cleared under the jungle boughs and slung her rifle onto her back so she could get down on her haunches and rest. “I suppose Tsuga could be slowing her down. My apologies. Neither of us expected it to take so long, but she brought him along at the last minute.”</p>
<p>Heavy clouds continued to gather overhead, as they had for most of the past hour. That was no good. Daiba didn't know much about this planet, but he doubted even Mazone would want to be stranded in a jungle in the middle of a downpour.</p>
<p>“Tsuga is your son?” Harlock was hanging back, observing.</p>
<p>“He's a male adolescent in our care,” Cypri said. “Not too different from that, then. If it's easier for you, call him our son. But come, sit.”</p>
<p>Daiba came to the pit of embers first. Harlock set Zoll down so that he could scuttle over to Daiba, then walked over himself. He didn't sit. Daiba scrolled his eyes up Harlock's body and didn't even bother telling himself it was to read his captain's mood. First, Harlock was often unreadable. Second, the sight of Harlock without his cloak covering him up was fairly rare, as were opportunities to gawk at him. Since his attention was fixed on Cypri and he was standing right next to Daiba, this was an above-average opportunity.</p>
<p>Of course, his brain quickly reminded him – very pleasantly – of the all too recent encounter his lap had had with Harlock's ass, and he threw his gaze right back into the coals.</p>
<p>That feeling had been easier to manage when he could cast it away as a confused attachment to the first man besides his father who'd ever been kind to him. That was how life on the debauched Earth had taught him to categorize those feelings. Sex and tenderness were to be extracted from women, nowhere else. Anything else was adolescent confusion that would be forgotten in adulthood.</p>
<p>The opportunity for that confusion to resolve itself had passed and the certainty it left behind was too much to take sometimes.</p>
<p>“Does it make a difference whether he's related to you?” Harlock asked.</p>
<p>Cypri raised her skinny eyebrows. “Of course.” She gestured to Mayu, and to Zoll. They both shrunk away. “Are these yours? No.”</p>
<p>Daiba breathed a little sigh. At least she hadn't counted him among the kids.</p>
<p>“I'm responsible for them all the same,” Harlock said. He ruffled Mayu's hair without taking his eye off Cypri.</p>
<p>“But they aren't yours, not even the girl. And you go through so much for her.”</p>
<p>Shizuka broke in, moving smoothly to stand by Harlock. “Humans place a different value on children,” she said, patiently. “Tribes and family lines can be overlooked.”</p>
<p>“Because it's so easy, I suppose,” Cypri said. She rose from her crouch and stretched. “Humans can produce children by accident. I envy that.”</p>
<p>The silence that followed – wherein Daiba waited for Mayu or, worse, Zoll to ask what that meant – was too terrible for Daiba to let it live long. “It's not as convenient as it sounds,” he said, trying to laugh. “Carrying a baby puts a lot of stress on your body.”</p>
<p>“How would you know?” Cypri shot back.</p>
<p>Wincing, Daiba looked away. “I've- You know, I've read things.” He hadn't been aboard for Zoll's birth, so he couldn't even claim that level of firsthand knowledge. “I had to learn about it in school.”</p>
<p>“I didn't learn that in school,” Mayu said.</p>
<p>Oh, no. Why did she have to pick this moment to get over her nerves?</p>
<p>“That's because it's complicated. You didn't learn long division at school either,” Harlock said. He didn't seem bothered at all. Daiba was surprised for all of a nanosecond before he remembered that it was Harlock and Harlock was weird. Amazing, but weird. “I'll tell you the simple parts when we get home if you want to know.”</p>
<p>Mayu, perhaps sensing the waves of embarrassment Daiba was radiating into the air, shifted from foot to foot and said, “Maybe.” Then, the coy playfulness left her face and she ducked against Harlock, staring into the jungle.</p>
<p>Something was moving around out there, coming nearer. Daiba jumped up and drew his gun, but Harlock held out a hand to still him.</p>
<p>“Wait,” Harlock said as Daiba let his gun drop.</p>
<p>A short, reedy body burst into the clearing. His feet skidded in the damp dirt and Cypri darted over to meet him. He was over a head shorter than Cypri with square cut chin-length hair the same sea foam color as his skin. He wore the same long tunic and simple pants Daiba had seen every other Mazone male wear. This, Daiba was forced to assume, must be Tsuga.</p>
<p>“Where is Radia?” Cypri was staring him down, and he was looking right back up.</p>
<p>“On the bluff, near the waterfall,” Tsuga said. Mazone didn't need to breathe, so it was only natural that tearing through the jungle wouldn't take the breath out of him. “She's hurt.”</p>
<p>Daiba holstered his gun and started for the clearing's edge. “We can get in my plane and get to her fast.” No one followed him. He deflated a little.</p>
<p>“Not with this storm hanging overhead,” Harlock said. He was looking up through the gaps in the trees, into the blackness. He looked to Shizuka. “You assist the doctor, don't you? Did you ever learn to treat Mazone?”</p>
<p>Of course he wouldn't call them 'your people.' Mayu was right there, and while Daiba wasn't sure she'd worked out Shizuka's origins he didn't expect she'd react well to being reminded.</p>
<p>Shizuka put a hand to her chest and nodded. “I have. I wasn't- I couldn't replace a medic, but I could help some.”</p>
<p>“Good. Get the supplies that you can and take Daiba with you. I've observed the area from above and know that the waterfall isn't far. I can draw you a map.”</p>
<p>“You would do this for us?” Cypri asked. She was already walking to the main building, presumably to fetch supplies for Shizuka. “Why?”</p>
<p>Daiba didn't need to ask why, or to ask why he'd been sent along. As he saw it, Harlock planned to stick close to the kids and keep his eye on Cypri and Tsuga, and for Daiba to accompany Shizuka without a possible enemy as a guide.</p>
<p>Probably.</p>
<p>Either that, or Harlock had already determined them to be harmless and wanted to give Daiba some slack on his reins.</p>
<p>Also possible.</p>
<p>Cypri's homestead was well-stocked and organized. It only took minutes to outfit their expedition. Really, the most challenging part was prying Zoll off of Daiba's arm so that he could leave.</p>
<p>Once they were in the jungle, Daiba surging ahead with a headlamp on and Harlock's map in hand, it took a similarly short span of time for Shizuka to stop him in his tracks with an announcement he'd hoped he'd go a lot longer not hearing.</p>
<p>“I need to talk to you about the captain.”</p>
<p>“Uh. Oh?” Daiba let her walk ahead a couple paces so she wouldn't read his face. She was good at that, and he did not need that right now.</p>
<p>“You've noticed that he's not well.”</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>“I have.” Daiba's voice dropped even though they were alone with the jungle sounds. “He told me, actually.”</p>
<p>A drooping vine as thick as Daiba's arm sagged into their path and Shizuka ducked under it. “What did he tell you?”</p>
<p>“That it's a poison, basically, and his body is still working it out.” Daiba's shoulders prickled hotly under his suit. “Is that not true?”</p>
<p>“You know that I assist the doctor,” Shizuka said, breezing right by the question. “The captain hasn't been around to undergo any further examinations, but Dr. Zero and I are both observant. He's withdrawn, he's not putting on weight as quickly as the doctor would like to see. And he gets sick whenever he's around you for too long.”</p>
<p>Daiba bristled. “What's that supposed to mean? I've only seen him get sick once, and that's when he told me about it.”</p>
<p>“Yes, on your scavenging mission,” Shizuka said. Okay, so their attempt at a nonchalant return had not worked. “And, you may have guessed, we Mazone are very perceptive to things like changes in temperature and humidity. It's as essential to our survival as the senses that allow you to walk upright and orient yourself in space. When you're around, even if he doesn't show it, his body starts throwing off waves of wet heat. You're doing much the same now, to a lesser degree.”</p>
<p>He sure was putting more humidity into the air trying to sputter out a reply that didn't come off as defensive. “What am I supposed to do with that information?”</p>
<p>Not the best choice, but Daiba was getting more pressed by the second and Shizuka's reply knocked the words out of him entirely.</p>
<p>“Well, you're both males so it feels absurd to me to even suggest it, but you could try having sex with him.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Notes on Progress:<br/>---<br/>We've reached 20,000 words and I daren't reflect on how many more words I'll write before I resolve everything I have/will soon set up. Aaahahahaa less than a month has elapsed in story time. No one has kissed! We've seen the main villain once! I'm only just approaching a second battle of significant consequence!<br/></p>
<p>Of course, it's not like I didn't know this would happen. I know how long it takes me to establish things, and I know that we're pulling out of the Premise Introduction stage where I set out the rules and stakes in place for the principal characters, as well as making the positions of any highly visible supporting characters clear.</p>
<p>AND speaking of rules and stakes and positions, holy crap was this a milk-as-jogging-beverage level bad choice of continuity in which to set anything as reflective and linear as a long form prose piece. Leijiverse in general is highly Uh, Conceptual, Man not to mention prone to what I call 'mid-stream diversions,' but the 1978 anime series is just on another level. As it turns out, coordinating departments around the goal of adapting the ideas of a terminally horny and incandescently strange man into children's television does not result in a universe that can be coherently described from beginning to end. It is a text incompatible with the Wookieepedia model of understanding a fictional universe, and while I love that it also makes things like fact checking and continuity compliance pretty challenging.</p>
<p>Are there evident male Mazone in the TV series because of a miscommunication between departments to which others said 'Fuck it, fine?' Because having large numbers of female combatants made people in the 70s very sweaty? In that case, why are they apparently civilians except in the case of an ambush where they're posed as civilians? Is it to tee up something that never gets resolved, which this series did a lot anyway? Is it another case of Fuck It?</p>
<p>How do you rectify the fact that Mazone are shown to reproduce through gestation in groves of (moaning, jizz-leaking) trees with the existence of named Mazone child characters who have disturbed but still extant bonds with a parent character?</p>
<p>Why do the trees moan and leak jizz?</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>I've wound up making a lot of (admittedly: questionable) judgment calls and artistic choices when it comes to<br/>a) Making shit up.<br/>b) Extrapolating from the most appealing/useful versions of conflicting information in the source.<br/>c) Sealing my ears and going LALALALALA while I try not to worry about how I'll justify or ignore whatever wack incongruities reveal themselves as I move forward.</p>
<p>In all serious, though, this is a collection of works that lends itself particularly well to the inevitable adaptation drift that happens in lots of longer or more ambitious fan projects. You will always wind up making shit up, throwing out certain source elements while you beef others up, or outright ignoring inconvenient elements in the service of what is, at the end of the day, its own separate instance. Leijiverse is already a big galaxy of works that are Just That Thing. Different things are true between different instances, and this isn't a series of errors. A character's core representational value usually remains static, but their circumstances and relationships change between texts. I have watched this irritate many nerds, but I find it delightful.</p>
<p>So in a way it's very fun to have this gradually congeal into It's Own Thing. It feels appropriate. I will always strive to overwrite as little of the established (and un-contradicted) developments as possible, at least intentionally. However, if I do it accidentally that's probably because what I chose to do serves my intentions better and I wouldn't be moved to change my mind just to jibe with the Wiki page. Hell, that's arguably a further evolution into Something Else Entirely.</p>
<p>In short: I simultaneously care too much and not at all.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I don't know if I'll be working a 12 hour shift on Monday (!!!) so y'all get a short chapter today, as a treat.</p><p>This got <i>fucking weird.</i></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What is it about that boy?”</p><p>She was staring at him – at them – over the coals of the fire pit. With the storm pushing cool wind through the trees, Harlock had to wonder if they kept it at this level for warmth. Mazone didn't like cold, and the dark spaces under the canopies were far from balmy.</p><p>“There are many things 'about' him,” Harlock said. He swapped his gaze from Cypri to her son, who'd said nothing since Daiba and Shizuka took off. He was worried, or he was keeping dutifully silent so as to maintain the ruse. Mayu, too, had been silent at his side. Mercifully, Zoll had fallen asleep in the wake of all the excitement. “He's a complicated man.”</p><p>“I'm sure,” Cypri said. “But you know what I'm talking about.”</p><p>His breath hung around him in a heavy cloud, or seemed to. By all rationality, he should not have been embarrassed, and he wasn't... much. More than that, he was uneasy. She had noticed, and she had decided it was worth commenting on. She was trying to shake him. Or was she trying to get him to reveal something useful?</p><p>“You'd have to know him to understand.” It wasn't untrue. “I don't know how many Mazone understand the appeal of Earthmen anyway.”</p><p>Cypri laughed, high and chirping. Her eyes hardened. “Appeal isn't a concern of ours. We've grown beyond that, for better and worse. You know that.”</p><p>Mayu shrank against Harlock and he stepped forward so she could duck behind him. Cypri hadn't told him that, yet she knew that he knew it. “Does your own wife mean that little to you?”</p><p>“What a crude choice of words.” Cypri reached over with her long arm to pat Tsuga's head. He looked down so that his hair fell over his face. “Ours is a more advanced partnership than one governed by animal lust. It's truly beneficial.”</p><p>Harlock waited for her to keep talking. She was proud of herself, so it didn't take long.</p><p>“Radia's line is a good one, and I can serve her by securing her certain necessary resources.” Had she built this little homestead for her family, then? She did glance around the clearing as she said this, a small smile on her face. “Your people call that a marriage of convenience, don't they? I gain the security of strong offspring that will mature into a new Mazone faction, and Radia enjoys the fruits of labors that she finds impossible or unseemly.” She cackled. “Isn't it a bit like life on Earth's old frontier?”</p><p>“Space is it's own frontier.” Harlock couldn't attack her logic. In a world where people did all kinds of things in order to survive and thrive, establishing a family was one of the least terrible.</p><p>The rains came on as streams draining down from the network of oversized leaves covering the clearing. Mayu dipped into the doorway behind Harlock. Zoll yipped awake and scrambled to join her. Cypri and her son looked up to the sky as if in gratitude.</p><p>“It is,” Cypri said. She cricked her head a few degrees to look at Harlock, rainwater streaking around her very open eye. “But what about that boy? What is it about him? What is it about you, still alive and carrying the poison?”</p><p>Yes, she did know. They both, all, knew.</p><p>“He's my friend.”</p><p>“You want him to rut you.”</p><p>He moved back half a step to try and herd Mayu inside, and Cypri saw. “Well! What a change of heart when you were so willing to tell her the simple parts before. Am I wrong? You animals are easily read. Even you, Harlock, with the poison making it impossible to hide.”</p><p>Harlock raised his gun. “I won't harm you in front of your son if I don't have to, but I will give you only one opportunity to lie to me again. Did you summon us here to trap us, or to help your family?”</p><p>Cypri turned, corkscrewing the toe of one foot in the rain-drummed ground. It was getting too dark to see. “Can't both be true?” she asked. Far behind him, tree trunks crackled and foliage rained down. The growing gap in the canopy let the anemic sunlight reaching through the clouds into the camp. One arguable upside of what he knew, without even turning, was a massive disguised ship rising for battle. “My devotion to Rosacana is complete, even if it is beyond animal understanding. She will suffice for my legacy, and I am her provider. And if I'm right, I have secured a fine provision indeed.”</p><p>Harlock's grip on the gun tightened. “And what is that?”</p><p>“You know already. It's you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, it's late!</p>
<p>Yes, it's short!</p>
<p>I might come back and edit it for clarity later!</p>
<p>Time has no meaning and I miss the regular touch of the Sun!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  </p>
<p>(The good notes are on the bottom, like yogurt fruit!!)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Stop. That's disgusting.”</p>
<p>He hadn't meant to say it, but it was the most coherent string of words that Daiba's sputtering brain could piece together. Shizuka had taken his silence for curiosity and, on the tail of expressing her proposed solution, totally overloaded him with details that squashed his bodily excitement.</p>
<p>The mechanics of it – using sex cells, even cloned ones, as ingredients – were vile enough. The language that Shizuka used to describe her race's reproductive habits didn't help. Root parasitism. Nutrient siphon. Harvest and cull as terminology applied to children.</p>
<p>“I can't help how my people are,” Shizuka said. The rain sounds on the leaves obscured her voice. “I was made the same way.”</p>
<p>It couldn't be easy to be friends with someone who struggled not to hate what you are.</p>
<p>“I don't mean that,” Daiba said, only just realizing that himself.</p>
<p>“It makes you angry.”</p>
<p>“You're damn right it does!” He knew now that the flash under his skin must give him away. There was no repressing it. He had been angry enough, stewed through the night in his dark room, over seeing Harlock come home hurt and half-starved. The thought that someone would manhandle and drug him just to-</p>
<p>It threatened to reignite the killing rage he thought he had grown past.</p>
<p>The anger turned itself around on him, too, because it fed into a possessiveness that he had no right or reason to feel.</p>
<p>“It was a pitiful attempt anyway,” Shizuka said, as if that changed anything. “She was never going to get anywhere. I thought it was poisoning him at worst until he started reacting to you.”</p>
<p>Daiba was immediately ashamed once the words, “Just me?” escaped his mouth.</p>
<p>“Just you.” She sounded exasperated.</p>
<p>A harsh groaning sound like a door in the world falling open shook the ground beneath them before Daiba could embarrass himself further. Daiba staggered, but Shizuka stood straight up, head panning from side to side, her expression stiff and purposeful. “You should go. I'll take care of our stranded hostess.”</p>
<p>Unnaturally bright light from the underside of the ship rising over the valley below threw itself on them so hard that it wiped away some of the humanity in Shizuka's disguised form. Among the trees, standing so naturally, her silhouette alone wasn't enough to keep her human in his eyes. Maybe it was the anger.</p>
<p>Daiba raised an arm to shield his eyes and peek through the trees at the ship. It wasn't a Mazone ship, at least not a kind he recognized. Weird. “Did you know this was a trap?”</p>
<p>“I'm a spy,” Shizuka said. She was already moving through the jungle again. “I had hoped that it wasn't, but I can't forget what I know. Get going. I doubt they're just after me.”</p>
<p>Daiba was already tearing his way down the slope to the valley, the ship, and the shots.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>It was an Earth ship, or at least one designed by an Earthling. It had some of the same lines Daiba had seen on photos and illustrations of old, old diesel ships, that waft of nostalgia that crowds close in the skulls of so many Earthmen who are called to build spaceships.</p>
<p>That didn't explain the flying sparks.</p>
<p>He had burst out of the tree cover to a scene of total chaos where he'd left a placid if tense family home not an hour earlier. Machine soldiers – the source of the sparks, which scattered from them in sprays when Harlock's shots struck home – had stormed the valley. They left the Mazone untouched, Cypri standing smugly back and Tsuga behind her restraining the kids while Harlock dealt with the swarm.</p>
<p>Mayu was doing everything in her power to chew through Tsuga's arm and get to Harlock. Daiba didn't expect she planned to run away.</p>
<p>Nobody noticed him.</p>
<p>Well, maybe it was that. Maybe the flammable fumes of rage still swirling around in his brain spurred him into action faster than he could read the situation himself. He fired a series of wild shots into the scrum of machine bodies clamoring for a shot at Harlock, and in doing so sent every artificial eye swiveling in his direction.</p>
<p>He had Harlock's attention, too, and the captain did not look entertained. Even if he only had one eye to glower with, the general message that this had been going (more or less) well before Daiba bounced onto the playground came through loud and clear.</p>
<p>It didn't matter. It couldn't matter. There were bigger things than his ego at stake, and he enjoyed a single moment of clarity of purpose thinking that if he could split the swarm and give Harlock some breathing space by being a distraction he would be contributing very nicely.</p>
<p>Cypri fired the first shot into his back.</p>
<p>Daiba pitched forward, bent over double by the force that his suit dispersed across his entire rib cage. It was ballistic, not a bolt from an energy gun, but the pain made it easy to forget that he'd been spared a swift death or a long and painful night or Dr. Zero trimming and sewing him. The point of impact was a burning pinprick under his right lung, felt deep even without the bullet boring through him.</p>
<p>A foot flung forward in a moment of instinctive flailing caught him before he hit the dirt. He pushed off it to turn his body around and return the shot. The light from his gun crossed another shot mid-air. Daiba's flew off into the trees, up too high, too far right.</p>
<p>The shot fired from behind was like a cigarette cherry dropped on tissue paper, frying Cypri to shrieking curls of carbon on contact. The downpour couldn't save her. It flashed off her disappearing body as steam. She became a dissolving curtain that revealed Tsuga, still crouching with Mayu and Zoll crushed to his chest with one arm, holding a very small energy pistol in his other hand.</p>
<p>It had all happened so fast that Daiba had just finished struggling through his second breath through smash-rattled lungs.</p>
<p>“I'm sorry,” Tsuga said, immediately, perhaps to no one around or alive to hear it. He was shaking, and Daiba had to acknowledge – quite against his will – that he was hardly big enough to keep a hold on two little kids with one arm. He was another Mazone child in a terrible situation engineered by adults, but he wasn't a warrior. “I stole it. I'm sorry.”</p>
<p>The word “Okay,” creaked through Daiba's throat, and he was shocked at how clearly he heard the exchange.</p>
<p>When Cypri flared away, the fight had stopped.</p>
<p>He could hear Mayu's chirping sobs. Zoll was quiet, even if his mouth wasn't covered. He was only noisy when he felt safe.</p>
<p>Daiba lowered his pistol a few degrees, betting on Tsuga's weak nerves. And ignoring the way Harlock shouted his name as a warning. “You gotta let the kids go, though.”</p>
<p>Those weak nerves didn't snap. Fear flashed on Tsuga's face, but he just tipped it out of Daiba's view and held the kids tighter.</p>
<p>Daiba's mouth pulled itself into a long, tight line and his fingers flexed around the hand grip. The rage hissing around in his skull had been denied the nearest available outlet, and part of it had started to rapidly condensate into resentment at Tsuga for doing what he'd wanted to do himself. At Shizuka, at everyone, at circumstance itself for getting in the way of his retroactive bloodlust and killing Convallaria before he had so much reason to want all of one minute alone with her. It spun into an ugly refrain that crowded his brain.</p>
<p>'<em>I wanted to kill her, I wanted to kill her, I wanted to kill her, not her, </em><em><b>her</b></em><span>.'</span></p>
<p>
  <span>Daiba's arm shook in time with Tsuga's shoulders. The kids were quiet and the machine soldiers were still, as if paused. He could hear the off-beat tempo of Harlock walking up behind him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It threw him when a more level, less haggard voice than Harlock's spoke up.</span>
</p>
<p>“<span>Further bloodshed won't be necessary.” The voice didn't quite match the man Daiba turned to see, so broad and dark, a glossy black hulk not insignificantly taller than Harlock. “This has all gotten too far out of hand. I ought to apologize.”</span></p>
<p>
  <span>He didn't, and while Daiba did take note of that it wasn't the reason his first instinct was to train his gun on him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All Harlock had to do was touch his arm and mouth “Wait,” and he let it fall to his side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The plan had switched from 'fight like Hell' to 'play along and act cool,' apparently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Had Harlock always held himself so tightly in this mode? Did Daiba only notice now, or was this time different? Was it more dangerous? Why had five seconds elapsed without anyone saying anything?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harlock sounded as impatient as Daiba felt. Or maybe Daiba was projecting. “It's been a long time, Faust.”</span>
</p>
<p>“<span>It has. Come, though, be my guests.” He swept a glinting arm in the direction of the waiting ship. “I'm embarking on a tiresome voyage for business, and I would appreciate the company.”</span></p>
<p>
  <span>It sure didn't sound like an offer. The mechanical soldiers pressing in with weapons drawn didn't help.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hello! Time has passed!<br/></p>
<p>Boy, at some point in the distant past I was telling someone that this would get less dark and weird Real Soon. But I had all this Weird Energy from other projects that got kinda sidelined <strike>by depression</strike> and I looked at that and was like</p>
<p>mmmmmnnnn maybe I'll just put that in here? I already made all this Weird Energy. I can reuse it later if I wanna. Just look at it over there in the corner, being weird without me. Shame.</p>
<p>I also told that friend and another friend that I would not be going into the uncomfortable shit I imply about Mazone hierarchy, and told myself that I would accomplish this goal by only really featuring any male Mazone the same way they're presented in canon. In passing, mostly inactive, definitely not talking much.</p>
<p>And then I made a sweet boy!</p>
<p>So, you know.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>Now that I'm kind of recovering my ability to organize my thoughts, updates will be more regular even if they aren't always 2,000+ words. I cannot promise the notes will get shorter.</p>
<p>I'm not-not treating these segments like a blog at this point because, full disclosure, setting this little paper boat down in the trash-and-clown-choked canal that is the internet is one of maybe two ways I can get any emotional/intellectual engagement from more than five select people these days. It's: A bummer! A bummer I know many, many people are also experiencing.</p>
<p>Combined, the *waves vaguely* ambient threat of death and my own brain's trauma-ingrained response to confinement have done a lot of weird things to how I think about money, and comfort, and my own needs and wants. Like, I don't care about a $3 muffin anymore. Or a $3 tip for same. I don't. Even if I'm rarely at work, I'm in a position where it's not even a calculation anymore. That $6 has just transformed into a wish that I throw at people and it says, "I am so goddamn sorry this is like this and I really want you and this place to survive." I get a muffin to eat at home with my instant coffee when I get my mask off and my entire body scalded and soaped. I didn't have to make the muffin, it is pleasant food in a terrible time, and people our federal government has openly abandoned get a little money. It feels extremely fair, and my memory of agonizing over it in January when my paychecks were fat and we were all assured This was fine is <i>embarrassing.</i> To me. However you feel about whatever is up to you to determine.</p>
<p>I just wanted to bring you to the place where I am, the place where I'm kind of losing a lot of my socialized anxieties, including shame over having any kind of need for emotional nourishment so that I can state definitively: I like comments. Words of affirmation are my love language. They make me feel seen, they make me feel (and this is at a goddamn premium in this era) <i>useful</i> because I at least know that I have made somebody less miserable for a few minutes.<br/>  </p>
<p>I'm trying to exercise this myself when I read fanfic, even if that's not super often because my tastes are super niche in a niche fandom, but: If something made you happy (or worried in a fun way, I also like doing that to people!), however asinine or rudimentary you think the comment is, however much you think you're being a pest or a dork, I promise you're not and reading about how I'm keeping people entertained really does feed me. You don't have to. I don't expect you to. It just would go pretty far for me in a shitty time.</p>
<p>I don't have a clever sign off, so here's another gif.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I said the chapters would be short for a while, but apparently I lied! This one got so long and demanded so much attention that I've yet to reply to comments left on the last chapter. Like, this goddamned thing demanded all my spare energy this week.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“The children are prepared for boarding once you return to collect them. All of them. We'll orchestrate our own return later.”</p><p>Harlock's voice over the radio, turned up loud to carry over the patter of rain. Coming closer, closer. Shizuka Namino was making her way up the narrow path to the summit, drawing ever nearer to the divot into which Rosacana had rolled. She wasn't on the summit like they'd planned. If Harlock still had his radio, then nothing had gone to plan.</p><p>Cypri was likely dead, which was simultaneously a shame and of no real consequence. She was useful. If she wasn't fully deluded, she was close to it. Cypri believed that she loved Rosacana, that doing service for Rosacana would grant her something for which Mazone were not constructed. Had Tsuga killed her, the way he'd tried to kill Rosacana? With her stolen gun?</p><p>
  <em>Tried.</em>
  <span> What a laugh. He had killed her, even if it had taken time. The fall had done more than the shot that blasted her backward off the bluff, but it would do its work. Too much of her body was broken open and her life was spilling out faster than even the jungle downpour could replenish it. Her arm, which she could see in the lightning flashes but not move or feel, was shriveled and darkened. Her legs were snapped and wouldn't hold her. There would be no abandonment of her final post. </span>
</p><p>The sky flashed again and she waited for the snarls in the clouds to die down before she called out through her smirking mouth, “Paphio! Come, be a witness for me.”</p><p>Paphio stopped short, stunned, the way spies are trained not to do when they hear their true names. She straightened, and she approached.</p><p>The pool of pale light that had welled up in the valley spread, chasing out the gloom under the trees as if to illuminate Rosacana and make her easier to find. The Black Knight's ship was leaving, then. In moments, it would be gone. The Machine Empire's people wouldn't make her a priority. She would die, and that would be all.</p><p>
  <span>When Paphio came to her, finally, the ship's receding light showed her as she was meant to do seen. Her hair was so blue that it shone black under the water and light, her skin coldly pale with all the animal pinkness of her disguise discarded.</span>
</p><p>“You won't burn, will you?” Paphio asked. She took a knee in the muddy pool and put her gun away. “Your lineage is that strong.”</p><p>“Yes, yes,” Rosacana said, as if the topic tired her. “Tsuga's is, too. Or his mother's was.”</p><p>Paphio regarded her without any obvious judgment. She still remembered enough of what she was to recognize this as important. “He's part of your reward, then.”</p><p>“He would have been. Him and the fruits of our efforts and free rein to go where we like. Retirement, if you like. If he hadn't shot me, that is.”</p><p>“Freedom for the two of you,” Paphio said.</p><p>There was the judgment.</p><p>“He would be cared for and living his purpose away from Lafresia's wars,” Rosacana said, though not with much force. She didn't have the time to convince Paphio of anything, only to say what she knew. “Now he's gotten uppity and can go off and get himself killed somewhere.”</p><p>“Disgraced soldiers like you – like us – have no access to the orchards,” Paphio pointed out. “Without that, there's no purpose waiting for him. Or would that have been another part of your reward?”</p><p>“We might have found a workaround if things had gone as planned.” Rosacana read curiosity on Paphio's face and scoffed. Mud sputtered before her face. The water was rising, coming down too fast for the slope to carry it away. She'd be washed down with it, eventually. “Don't look so hopeful. I didn't call you over here to confess all my dreams on my deathbed or whatever romantic notion you had.”</p><p>“You want me to kill you.”</p><p>“Make sure I'm dead and make sure Lafresia believes the others are dead, whatever's happened down there.” It had become hard to say their names, suddenly. Death could only make her so brave.</p><p>“Even Tsuga?” She was already getting her gun out. Good.</p><p>“<span>I wanted him to raise my children,” Rosacana said. She closed her eyes as if to rest, or to shut out the fading light. Really, she didn't want to see Paphio's face anymore. She'd taken her last glimpse of familiarity on this remote world, and that was enough. “I'm not without any investment in him. If he wants to be stupid he deserves a chance as much as I did.”</span></p><p>She'd had her reasons for selecting the two of them, just like her husband on Earth had had his reasons for choosing her.</p><p>“Is there anything you want me to tell them?”</p><p>Rosacana shifted her weight so that she could open her eyes to the alien sky. Fingers of lightning combed the clouds, flashing purple and blue. “Let them think whatever they think now. They'll make themselves happy.”</p><p>The last flash came from beside her.</p><p>---</p><p>Harlock trusted Tsuga. He recognized him on some level, the same way he had recognized Kei and the other young people aboard the Arcadia. There was an alikeness between suitable pirates, even when it was only partly uncovered.</p><p>Daiba did not possess this intuition, and spent their walk up the gangway grumbling and casting looks back at the sullen children. Mayu's own intuition was developing so rapidly that she didn't fight Harlock's orders to stay put and wait for the ship very hard at all. She could tell he wasn't lying when he'd told her that he would be safe with his and Daddy's old friend.</p><p>He did believe that. If Faust meant them harm, he'd have had Harlock hand over his weapons right away. A shot from Harlock's Cosmo Dragoon could take him out, but he let them carry their weapons onto the ship as if they weren't prisoners at all.</p><p>“You're going to Earth,” Harlock said, once they'd stepped out of the drumbeat of the rain. It wasn't a question, just a intuition shared aloud.</p><p>“<span>Yes.” Faust looked to the machine soldiers clustered around and behind his guests and they dispersed without hearing so much as a word. When their steps receded, the silence left behind in the passageway spoke to the overwhelming absence of real life on the ship. He walked on and Harlock nodded to Daiba to follow along with him. “I don't intend on handing you over once I arrive, however. I've arranged to drop you off on the way.”</span></p><p>“Why capture us in the first place?” Daiba asked.</p><p>“You haven't been captured. My dedication to the Mazone queen's pitiful grudge against Harlock is minimal and delivering him as an offering wouldn't advance the Machine Empire's interests in any meaningful way. I simply allow her to believe I'm doing my best. She thinks little enough of humans that she won't find it suspicious that you slipped my net.”</p><p>Harlock scrutinized Faust's back and the set of his shoulders under his cape. Not out of suspicion, but out of a detached kind of curiosity. “You still call yourself human, after all this time?”</p><p>“Lafresia makes no such distinctions.” Faust walked through a tall black door that hissed open at his approach and held his palm over a panel inside the chamber while Harlock and Daiba followed behind him. “My apologies for any inconvenience like that. These interior doors detect signals, not motion alone. We do have food, but the variety might leave something to be desired.”</p><p>The mention of food made Harlock's fingers and toes flash cold while the rest of him kept steaming under his wet suit.</p><p>He could feel Daiba drifting closer to him – really feel it, like a radiant force pushing against him. Was it awareness of his warmth, or of the way his breath took up space in that lifeless ship, or just an evolution of the hyper-awareness he'd experienced around Daiba for weeks?</p><p>“What about clothes?” Daiba asked. His voice was falsely light. “I feel kinda bad tracking water all over a ship full of robots.”</p><p>
  <span>Faust's face betrayed no annoyance at the weak jab. Of course, he didn't look entertained, either. He just turned and walked down to another door in a series of doors along one side of the corridor. It opened into a tidy room that reminded Harlock of hotel rooms on Earth. It wasn't a cell in appearance, at least. “</span>
  <em>Robots</em>
  <span> do wear clothes, as I'm sure you can see. You've been provided some things that wear easy on skin, but they're like the food.” </span>
</p><p>“And I suppose this door won't open automatically for a human, either,” Harlock said as he stepped into the room. “From either side.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Daiba's hackles raised and his shoulders stiffened, but he didn't actively react. Faust flashed the metal plate that represented his teeth and offered him no soothing words.</p><p>“It can't be helped, then,” Harlock said, reaching out for Daiba's shoulder to reel him deeper into the room and away from Faust. The muscles were hard and poised to snap into action, and that wouldn't do. “I'm sure you'll send an escort if you need to speak to me.”</p><p>“Naturally. Expect your escort shortly.” Faust drifted backward into the shade of the corridor. “I'll leave you to rest for now. You are my guests, after all.”</p><p>Once Faust was gone, Daiba let out an inarticulate snarling sound and stalked across the room to the heavy curtain that divided their temporary living space. “At least I don't need an escort to get to the freaking bathroom.”</p><p>“That could get inconvenient quickly.” Harlock stood to the side of the curtain, his gaze thrown without thought up to the ceiling. It was an offensive off-white and no effective distraction from the woozy feverishness he had been able to ignore until Faust left. “This is a space for guests, after all. Throw me out some clothes, if that's what you're doing.”</p><p>Silence. The curtain didn't stir.</p><p>Harlock sighed. “If it isn't, that's not a problem.”</p><p>Another moment passed before Daiba cleared his throat and fired off, “I figured you should change in here since there's probably cameras in that room,” so rapidly that the sentence was difficult to parse out.</p><p>“There's no guarantee there aren't cameras in the bathroom.”</p><p>
  <span>A wadded up pile of white cloth ejected from the gap between the curtain and the floor, rolling and spilling over the carpet. A blue carpet followed it like an afterthought. </span>
</p><p>“Thank you.” Harlock leaned on the wall to unzip and pull off his boots. He piled his weapons and their holsters on the table by the sofa. The rest came off quickly, even if the water made everything cling to him. The air felt sharp on his overheated skin, which had turned a warmer and brighter shade. He felt his face for want of a mirror and found it about as warm as his hands, which were also very warm.</p><p>The prospect of Daiba noticing felt catastrophic for reasons he couldn't rationalize to himself. He toweled off and pulled on his new clothes, grateful that his traitor body wasn't showing any less concealable signs of excitement.</p><p>He could blame it on exertion if Daiba brought it up.</p><p>The clothes that Faust had decided were suitable for humans were very simple and, on Harlock, minimal. The lightweight jersey shorts fit very closely on him and only reached the middle of his thighs, and the long terminated a couple inches from his knees. He could be thankful that it was very loose, and that was all. They were clothes for sleeping in, clearly.</p><p>“Um.” The curtain rippled a little and Harlock could see Daiba's bare toes poking out from under it. “Are you ready?”</p><p>“Yes,” Harlock said, crossing the room to the little counter set into the wall across from the bed. It would help to get as much space as possible from Daiba, and he wanted to explore anyway. “Are you hungry?”</p><p>The curtain swished open and Harlock put off turning around to look at Daiba. He busied himself with the doors and drawers over the counter as an implicit excuse. There was packaged prepared food, coffee, and a few other things that felt less important at the moment.</p><p>“I don't know how I'm supposed to eat right now,” Daiba said. There was a springy thump and Harlock could easily imagine him throwing himself onto the bed disconsolately.</p><p>Only one bed. Why would there be more?</p><p>There was a sofa, too. It would be fine.</p><p>“You should always eat and sleep as necessary, especially when you're in a difficult position.” Harlock tore open a palm-sized package from one drawer and upended it into a heavy mug from another. He passed it under the sensor for the hot water dispenser that had its own little cabinet. Concentrated soup smell started to disperse through the small room. It was a very familiar setup, very similar to ones he'd encountered in officers' cabins on Gaia Fleet ships. “Besides, aren't you cold?”</p><p>“Kind of,” Daiba admitted. He was situated on the edge of the bed facing the counter when Harlock turned around, the hem of his shirt draping over his knees. He took the cup and stared into it. “Who is that guy, anyway?”</p><p>Harlock fixed his own soup before he bothered to answer. To simply say, 'A friend,' wouldn't work on Daiba the way it worked on Mayu. He didn't join Daiba on the bed, instead leaning on the edge of the counter to take some weight off his feet while he talked into the steam under his face. “I knew him in my youth, before he took the body you've seen him in. We were prisoner volunteers in allied armies.”</p><p>“With your friend,” Daiba said.</p><p>He wasn't as small under the formless clothes as Harlock had feared he would be. It was hard to not look at him and let the sight anchor him in the present.</p><p>“Yes. He became my friend, too, in time.”</p><p>“What's a friend of yours doing in the Machine Empire's pocket?”</p><p>“I can't say why men do the things they do.”</p><p>The soup tasted of salt and not much else.</p><p>“You don't have to if you don't want to,” Daiba said, shifting. “Say why, I mean. It's not like it's my business.”</p><p>From seething to shrinking to sullen all in under half an hour. That was Daiba.</p><p>“<span>It's difficult to relate when I don't know it all myself, that's all.” Against his body's thrumming and his brain's concurrent protest, he joined Daiba on the bed. “You're not a child like Mayu. I don't have any reason to keep things from you if I know them.”</span></p><p>“You do, though!” Soup splashed on Harlock's foot, having slopped over the edge of the mug in Daiba's waving hand.</p><p>Since this was true, Harlock saw no point in rising to his own defense.</p><p>Daiba was quiet, composing himself. The energy coming off him buffeted Harlock in waves and made him queasy. “Shizuka told me what happened to you on that prison station. That you're not going to the doctor like you told me.”</p><p>Harlock walked away from him. He didn't disguise the anger in his voice, mostly because it provided a less threatening wash of heat than the one competing for his attention. “That's not something for anyone else but me to tell.”</p><p>“It is when I'm the one who makes you sick, and when you won't tell me because-” Daiba huffed. He was off the bed, now, closing in. His hand closed on Harlock's shoulder and he pulled, trying to turn him. Harlock wouldn't let him. “Hell, I guess there's a lot of reasons not to tell me as far as you see it.”</p><p>“You don't make me sick, Daiba.” It was hard to say more with his mind reeling from the revelation of how much Shizuka had observed when he thought he'd been so careful.</p><p>“You're sweating and shaking.”</p><p>He hadn't even noticed. “I'm tired.”</p><p>The panel by the door bleeped tonelessly. His escort, his rescue, had arrived just in time. When he tried to step out of Daiba's grasp, he found his body wouldn't cooperate.</p><p>“I want to help.” Daiba's hand slid off Harlock's shoulder and down his arm to squeeze his hand. “I know I'm not- I want to. Just consider it, okay?”</p><p>“<span>I appreciate the offer, but I need to go.” He made no move to leave because he couldn't force his arm to pull his hand away. Daiba's touch wasn't electric or scalding like he'd feared it would be. It was cool and inviting, and his body wanted nothing more than to dive into that feeling and be doused. “I'm sorry.”</span></p><p>Daiba made a dismayed sound that hurt Harlock's heart and drew his hand away. He still followed Harlock to the door, though. He caught Harlock's sleeve as he slipped out the door at the machine soldier's beckoning. It was like he was afraid to touch Harlock's skin suddenly.</p><p>He was looking down at his feet, his mouth all screwed up. “I know it's hard, okay? If it makes it easier, just think of me as someone you've met for the first time. Just think of me as someone new. Would that help?”</p><p>Harlock breathed out. “We'll talk more when I come back. I'm sorry, Daiba.”</p><p>---</p><p>The wine was good, but not good enough that he'd drink much of it in the company of a man he trusted only provisionally.</p><p>“Why spend the money on good wine you can't enjoy?” Harlock asked pointedly. He'd taken a spot standing at the wide bank of tiny panes looking out onto space. The furnishings in Faust's cabin were far from inviting, being heavy and angular. There wasn't a bed or a sofa anywhere, since machines didn't need to sleep or nap. Faust only needed chairs and a desk to play act for guests. The whole room was garishly and incessantly lit by screens and indicator lights. Even the carpet on his naked feet was a disappointment. It prickled and crunched like the cheapest artificial grass.</p><p>“The ritual is satisfying,” Faust said. He drifted over to Harlock soundlessly. “And I do get something out of patronizing an old friend's business in difficult times.”</p><p>Harlock drank. It had been so long and his brain was so rattled that the nostalgia couldn't reach him. “It's not far off,” he said. “Is that where you've arranged to drop us off?”</p><p>“It is.” There was no room for negotiation.</p><p>
  <span>Liber 0 was a tiny Earth-like mesoplanet that served almost exclusively as a set of sprawling vineyards and orchards that employed the whole of the modest population. Said population enjoyed a joint reputation for producing some of the finest drink in space and for fiercely guarding their sovereignty. In Harlock's youth, it had served as an infrequent getaway location. It was a good place for pirates.</span>
</p><p>“The old man is still alive, then?” Harlock asked. He wished Faust would move away so that he wouldn't have to see his reflection in the windows, however vaguely. The whole point was to not give him the satisfaction of being acknowledged.</p><p>“Against all odds. Most of my business is done through his son.”</p><p>“And your own son?” The one he hadn't mentioned once in the first year Harlock had known him.</p><p>He hadn't mentioned the wife, either. Not at first.</p><p>“I can't say.” Faust passed behind him and Harlock felt an immediate resentment at him for leaving him the thinnest covering between the robotic environment and his human body. He stopped in Harlock's blind spot. “You never produced any children, did you? The girl is Oyama's.”</p><p>“The opportunity has yet to present itself,” Harlock replied stiffly, not turning.</p><p>If he didn't look, it was like Faust wasn't there at all. The radiance he felt from Daiba hadn't made its reappearance. Not that he had expected it from an inhuman body.</p><p>“You might have had some opportunities with those Mazone. I think they misinterpreted your resistance to their methods as evidence of some unanticipated compatibility.”</p><p>“Unlikely.” Harlock took another long, medicinal swallow from his glass. He may have had plenty reason to believe humanity had origins as some splinter relation to the Mazone, but this was too much.</p><p>“People still mate wolves to dogs.” Faust had made similar deductions, apparently.</p><p>“Mazone can't carry children.” Harlock drained his drink and went to the table to pour himself more. “It pains them, at least those who've bothered to tell me.”</p><p>“<span>Propagation is a preoccupation of theirs. It makes sense considering they're wholly incompatible with mechanization.”</span></p><p>“So am I,” Harlock said. He looked at Faust now, pointedly. “And I don't keep company with people who aren't.”</p><p>Faust upended the contents of his glass into whatever tube or cavity accepted it.”Still building your houses on foundations of sand?”</p><p>Maybe Harlock chose to see regret behind the accusatory cast of Faust's eyes. He wouldn't deny that he wanted to see it. Gozo Hoshino was as good as dead, had chosen to die and leave Harlock and everyone else who'd cared for him even a little behind. In that moment, Harlock's mind overlaid his memories onto the uncertain present and allowed him to see what he needed.</p><p>He needed to feel worth staying alive for.</p><p>“You'll change your mind before I change mine, and it's been too late for a while.” He set his glass on the table and crossed the crackling carpet to the door. “Neither of us will convince the other of anything today.”</p><p>Footfalls of a heavy body followed. Faust could make sound when he wanted. He didn't speak, though. He just let Harlock go with his escort, staring out the sliding door with what Harlock chose to read as expectation.</p><p>---</p><p>He'd cleaned up the soup on the floor. He'd hung their clothes up in the bathroom to dry. He'd contacted Kei to make sure everything was okay – it was – because nobody'd taken his radio either.</p><p>He'd spent some time lying face-down on the bed and wishing a really, really deep and selective wormhole would pop open and slurp him into another universe.</p><p>He'd gotten a lot done by the time Harlock returned. Not so much that he didn't feel an immediate, implacable crush of anxiety. He'd failed to sufficiently distract himself from all the dumb things he'd said.</p><p>Daiba collected himself in as dignified a way as he could on the end of the bed. He was still struggling with the decision to stand up – Stand because acting contrite would make it weirder? Sit because he'd already made it weird and needed to demonstrate that he knew that? - when Harlock walked over. He sprung to his feet on impulse. What, was he getting ready to run away if it came to that?</p><p>Stupid.</p><p>Harlock looked uncomfortably intense, as he often did. “I apologize for earlier.”</p><p>Wait. What?”</p><p>“Uh, why?” The sore spot on Daiba's back throbbed. It didn't like being tightened up so he could stand as tall and straight as possible. His body was trying to escape the situation vertically now.</p><p>“I disregarded your feelings for... selfish reasons,” Harlock said. Some of the intensity was gone and his eye had wandered from Daiba's face. “I can't just think of you as someone else, and I don't want to. And I realize you only said that because of how I've acted toward you.”</p><p>Daiba swallowed. There was a sticky fog between their bodies and he found himself revisiting the words 'waves of wet heat,' again. Harlock wasn't wrong, but he wasn't in any condition to have a coherent heart to heart either. Daiba's hands moved on their own to solve the problem. He grabbed Harlock's hot hands and gave a little pull, forgiving without speaking.</p><p>It didn't take more than that. Harlock fell forward so readily that they collided and fell back onto the bed. Daiba's eyes popped open and his lungs emptied. His hands traveled to Harlock's back. He was heavy and hot to the touch. In such thin clothes, he fit in Daiba's arms in a way that went against all the times Daiba had imagined the feeling. He shouldn't have been so slim and easy to hold. If he'd remained larger than life, it might have been easier for Daiba to lean on experience built up in his fantasy life and not fumble through this longed-for reality.</p><p>“Is this good?” he asked into Harlock's shoulder.</p><p>He still smelled like rain.</p><p>Harlock's weight fell more evenly on him, settling. “Yes.”</p><p>“I don't-” Daiba tried to swallow the heat out of his face. He absolutely couldn't shake the thought of the cameras. “I'm glad. How do you feel?”</p><p>Their bodies were mashed together, so it wasn't too difficult to tell if Harlock was going to demand Shizuka's proposed remedy right away. It didn't seem likely.</p><p>“Like I've been carrying a heavy burden and someone has taken it away and given me a place to rest,” Harlock said. He sounded drowsy.</p><p>“Rest sounds good.” Daiba stroked a hand up Harlock's back and listened to him sigh. His skin was cooling again. Prolonged contact, it seemed, was a sufficient stopgap. “You can't fall asleep on me, though.”</p><p>Harlock slid off him. He left an arm draped across his chest and the length of his body pressed to his side. Daiba allowed himself a long look. He looked... sweet, like that. It would have been so easy to reach over and burrow a hand through his hair to touch the shell of his ear. This thought, too, went against his fantasies. The scenarios in his mind were always straightforward. In the reality, he wanted to do all kinds of strange things like touch his ears or kiss the soft backs of his knees.</p><p>“Tomorrow,” Harlock said as if to pull Daiba out of his thoughts. “Tomorrow, we'll be off the ship and we'll have some time.”</p><p>Time? Daiba could do a lot with time. It would be crude to say that, though. “Where are we going?”</p><p>“Someplace good I haven't been in a long time.” He tucked his face into Daiba's neck. “I need sleep first. I'm sorry. I haven't been so ready to sleep in weeks and weeks.”</p><p>Daiba's face blushed hotter and he tried to get his pinned arm around Harlock's shoulders. “Well. I'm not going anywhere.”</p><p>Harlock's arm closed around him tightly, but he didn't say any more.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I've still earned the Slow Burn tag if it took 25,000 words to get around to acknowledging mutual feelings, right? Next chapter is a segment I've been referring to as 'the fuck vacation,' so get ready for that.</p><p>This would be longer, but I realize I have comments waiting on replied and also the trash to take out.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, I fought with myself for a little bit about breaking this part of the story into separate chapters. I have, as you will notice, and I've done it for a couple of reasons:</p><p>-First, I got news of a death in my immediate family literally the day after I last updated and navigating that long distance his been a persistent drain on my energy and made writing large amounts of words very difficult. Breaking it up means you get updates more than once per month,</p><p>-Second, I just. Really want to take this as an opportunity to slow down and zoom in, and get some heightened emotional and sensual writing done with only two characters present.</p><p>-Bonus: I went and killed off one of my point of view characters, and I am stalling while I decide if I'll choose a new one.</p><p>(And if anyone is wondering why I write all these prolific lewd pining scenes for Harlock and none for Daiba: It's *my* fancfic and *I* get to decide who to sexually obsess over!)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His drug-soaked body was making itself easier to fuck.</p><p>That was the only acceptable explanation for the way the aloe muck that had forced itself up his throat intermittently for too long after he was safe again had permeated him so thoroughly that it had reached the opposite end of his body.</p><p>Any real concern over that was distant in the moment. With one leg slung over the edge of the tub and the shower running over him to provide a smokescreen of white noise, Harlock was too fixated on his body's demands to think too much about the implications of its emerging peculiarities.</p><p>It demanded, above all else, Daiba. It accepted his fingers, and eagerly. The reward was immediate and powerful, a pleasure that made his body want to curl into itself in immobilized defense against the sensory assault. It was like being tickled, a little, only he could do it to himself and it made his cock twitch and dribble.</p><p>He'd woken up hot and dizzy and gone for some water. Within moments he'd gotten hard enough that it hurt and had to slip into the next room while Daiba slept on.</p><p>Daiba.</p><p>He turned his face to the side so that his quickening breath wouldn't leave him sputtering on the water. Even with his clothes stripped off and water beating down on him the smell of Daiba's body clung to his skin and his hair. He hadn't slept with another man in years. To smell of someone else was new again, and overwhelming.</p><p>His hips rose up on their own. The only choices he had the willpower to make related to controlling his breath and his voice. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Even trying his best to fuck himself senseless with just his fingers, even with every uncontrollable motion cutting him with sensation, he had to be quiet.</p><p>He didn't want to risk Daiba walking in and seeing him in that state.</p><p>He wanted, so badly, for Daiba to come in and see him spread open and laid out for...</p><p>For what?</p><p>Use?</p><p>Harlock moaned behind shivering lips. His hips jerked.</p><p>Even as he was cumming, he knew it wouldn't be the last time. That was all he was really cognizant of in that moment, the undeniable need for more even as he reached what should have been the final crisis of his frenzy.</p><p>
  <em>Take me.</em>
</p><p>
  <span>He kept his lips pressed very tight to keep from saying it. He had to, otherwise his body would override his better judgment and start sobbing for relief. It would cry out for Daiba and present itself, and he would be given over to this compulsion entirely. And he would go without regrets, because he did want Daiba.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daiba, who would never be tall but was still so strong and upright in battle when he'd shivered back to back with Harlock so long ago. Daiba, who still covered his fears for everything he wanted to protect over with anger. Daiba, who was such a good height to get Harlock's legs over his shoulders and fold him back to bear down on him with the full strength and weight of his body. Daiba, who he desired and loved with equal ferocity.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>I'm yours. This body won't tire. Give me everything.</em>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand was making lewd, sloppy sounds between his legs as he forcibly jabbed his clenching insides and ground the pad of his hand into his balls and the base of his cock. He tried to turn his churning fingers into the hot bulk of a hard cock in his mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sliding in and out. Dragging on the tight walls of his ass. Driving in deeper than he could manage with fingers alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The solid weight of Daiba's hips falling on him over and over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His breath. His voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>Fuck me. Fuck me. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock whined and came again, spilling out a runnier and clearer load of cum to mix with the streams of water. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn't stop. His heart was smashing itself against his ribs, his jaw ached from clenching, his vision was spotting for want of oxygen, but his hand and his hips wouldn't stop. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>Cum in me</em>
  <span>...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His brain hung up on that and his mouth creaked open to draw more air. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>Cum in me!</em>
</p><p>
  <span>To be filled up like that would be... Just the thought threatened to fog Harlock's brain over entirely. It was so singularly intoxicating that it consumed him. Like there was a flame burning him from the inside and Daiba could douse it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He braced his spare hand on the wall of the tub and pushed hard on his prostate, imagined the pressure of his kneading fingers as the splashing impact of Daiba's cum jetting into his oversensitive body.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Agh!” Too late, he let his spasming body fall back so that he could clap a hand over his mouth. He came and came until his muscles lost tension and the corners of his vision started to gray. Until he was soft and every sound around him seemed to reach his ears through twenty feet of water. </span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock breathed and listened. He pulled his leg into the tub. And he listened. The deadened sounds reaching his popped ears gave no indication that Daiba was moving around beyond the curtain. Good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He held his trembling arm up and fanned out his fingers. Slick spiderweb strands of the aloe slime stretched, broke, and fell between them. The thicker, whiter strands that had run down from his pumping cock stuck harder to his skin, sticky rather than slippery. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Overthinking that wouldn't be productive, he decided.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually he was able to gather himself up and wash. He returned himself to bed, fairly confident that his body would remain satisfied for the next couple hours left in their journey. Daiba would wake soon, and then they would both be preoccupied with disembarking hunkering down in their hideout. He still had time before he showed that face to Daiba.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a relief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was also miserable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sleeping, Harlock was... 'Cute' didn't feel like an appropriate word. Mii was cute. Mayu was cute. Zoll could be cute </span>
  <em>sometimes</em>
  <span>. Harlock, Daiba reasoned, wasn't small enough or delicate enough to be cute. There was just something about the way sleep softened his face that had Daiba convinced that waking him up would be unfair somehow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They hadn't slept coiled up in each other the way he'd heard – and seen, sometimes, in Arcadia's corridors after an impromptu party – people who desire one another normally do. It hadn't bothered Daiba to wake up and find himself sleeping parallel to Harlock, but he would be the first to admit that he was working from a very limited set of data. His father's hair had been white by the time Daiba was old enough to remember him. His parents produced their one precious, desired son and lived the rest of their lives together retiring to separate beds at separate bedtimes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had his father ever crossed their room early in the morning and admired her with her hair down, thought that she was lovely and been grateful for her? How many mornings did he creep through their apartment to avoid the unfairness of waking her?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daiba had never considered that before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that he had the luxury of lingering with the thought. Even if there weren't bags to pack, he was anxious to get off that creepy, dead ship the instant it touched ground. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This had occurred several minutes ago, and he was currently wasting the time they had before another creepy robot escort came to lead them outside. Hopefully. Hopefully it wasn't an elaborate double-cross. He was getting sick of those.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was he supposed to touch him? Was that allowed? This was easier with the kids because he could just pick them up and tote them wherever they needed to be. Hell, even with the sleepy sprawls of drunk sailors in the corridors he could just snap at them to hustle out of his way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaning awkwardly over him was not going to do it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn't get dressed as conspicuously as possible and hope that did the trick. He'd already done that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thinking about making coffee made him want to throw up for whatever reasons, so that was out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He eventually settled on positioning himself on the other side of the room, by the door. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Captain?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock's body puffed up in a deep intake of breath and he stretched his legs. The stupid little prison pajamas they'd been provided were so unforgiving that Daiba flinched into staring up at the ceiling instead. He also stood up impossibly straight for reasons he couldn't justify to himself.</span>
</p><p>“<span>I suppose we're leaving,” Harlock said.</span></p><p>
  <span>Hearing his voice first thing in the morning was something Daiba's brain decided immediately to file away forever, a completely pointless milestone he'd never even considered before it had already happened.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Is something wrong?” Apparently Daiba had been quiet for a nanosecond too long or something.</span></p><p>“<span>No. Well.” Daiba peeled his eyes off the ceiling just in time to see Harlock stepping into his flight suit with his shorts on as inconvenient underpants. Good. “It's just that we touched down a while ago and nobody's come to get us. I was kind of worried about that. Is all.”</span></p><p>“<span>He'll give us time to wake up and prepare,” Harlock said. “I doubt he's fully forgotten what it's like to wake up after a hard day.”</span></p><p>
  <span>There wasn't any point in hiding his little grunt of distaste. What was the point of not liking the guy if nobody knew? “You have a pretty high opinion of somebody those Mazone were ready to hand us off to before things went to Hell for them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That did not get a rise out of Harlock. He just kept buckling into his gear without so much as frowning. “I've told you before. He was my friend once.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Like you say I'm your friend?”</span></p><p>
  <span>What did he have to do? Jump up and down and flap his arms and yell, 'Please acknowledge how jealous I am?'</span>
</p><p>“<span>For a time, yes.” Harlock fixed the ties on his holsters to his thighs and started for the door. “That isn't why I accept that he'd rather betray Lafresia than us.”</span></p><p>“<span>Then why?”</span></p><p>“<span>He was among many serving sentences for taking part in labor protests on Earth. Even if I can't say where the part of him that values justice over power has gone, I don't believe that it's disappeared.”</span></p><p>
  <span>It didn't seem fair to Daiba that he'd been made to feel like a complete dick at a time when all they had to do was stand awkwardly by the door until their escort came, but that's exactly what had happened. And, he had to admit, it was mostly his own fault.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Faust didn't accompany them out into the beating sunlight outside the ship, which was definitely for the best. Having that creepy weirdo looming over them would have totally spoiled the view. Plus, Daiba would have had to watch Harlock say goodbye to Faust, probably, or watch them talk to each other at all. And then he would have to be mad at himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The view sure was... something, though.</span>
</p><p>“<span>What do you think?” Harlock asked. He took Daiba's hand to get him moving off the gangway, and Daiba went along with it automatically. It was easy to be commanded that way, and nice. It helped Daiba forget the ship that had come to occupy most of the impact crater where a meteor had scooped a bowl into the valley ages before people came and set it aside as a landing zone for ships.</span></p><p>
  <span>The interior of the bowl itself was shockingly green and alive, the floor and its far-off, sloping walls carpeted in short grasses with blades as skinny as hair. The outer ring swayed and shimmered in sprays of warm color that Daiba was forced to assume, at such a distance, must be flowers.</span>
</p><p>“<span>We'll walk to the rim and wait for our rendezvous,” Harlock said, still walking, still leading Daiba by the hand. “He's a flesh and blood man, I promise.”</span></p><p>“<span>You're good to walk all that way?” Daiba asked. He was keenly aware of the heat all of a sudden. Stepping out of Faust's dead ship and straight into the height of summertime was a shock.</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock's hand closed more tightly around his. “I think I'll be fine.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>THE SEX PART IS BEGINNING</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm tired. Here's porn. Let me know if you enjoyed the porn.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Well, if it ain't the baby boy!”</p><p>They heard Boudeaux before they ever saw him, which Harlock knew was just how the old man operated. He could blast his voice all the way across the valley if he tried. It was about a half a minute after they heard his reedy hollering that he came swerving around the crater's lip on a battered little air buggy that made little sound aside from the forceful swish of tall grass and flower stalks bending around it. At some point, evidently, he had welded a drawbar to the back end so that he could take passengers in a trailer.</p><p>Daiba was already bristling at the little old man. He didn't need to speak; Harlock could just <em>feel</em> him prickling up. “He means me,” Harlock said, his voice low and secretive. “I was younger than my friend by a few months, but much bigger. Boudeaux finds this contrast very funny.”</p><p>It still wasn't easy to say Tochiro's name to other people. He hadn't exactly given himself the chance to practice.</p><p>“Well, now, who do you suppose this is?” Boudeaux killed the cart's engine and let it settle in the grass before he bounced off to come inspect Daiba. His beard had gotten whiter and more voluminous and Harlock had to wonder how he kept all the burrs out of it when he charged his short, scrawny body through the tall grass like that.</p><p>Daiba recoiled politely the way a child backs up from a friendly but unfamiliar dog. “Tadashi Daiba.”</p><p>Boudeaux thrust a hand out from the forest of his beard, which Daiba shook with supreme reluctance. “And I'm Boudeaux. Welp, you know where you are and you know why you're here, and you gotta be tired, so come on and hop on and we'll chat on the way.”</p><p>They followed through the path that Boudeaux beat through the grass and piled in underneath the threadbare canopy that shaded the trailer. It was cramped – the little cart probably couldn't pull much, especially with passengers – but that wasn't so bad. Being close to Daiba was... nice, now that there was no reason to tear himself away. It was soothing. The persistent, hungry fluttering in the bottom of his stomach felt promising rather than threatening.</p><p>He chose not to consider how long his body would accept the promise in place of concrete action. It was more pleasant, though not easier, to lose himself in this moment where the promise was enough.</p><p>“Ain't seen you in ten years,” Boudeaux said as the cart swished up another hill. “Is your little girl doing good?”</p><p>“She's well,” Harlock said, looking across the front of Daiba's face and out at the view beyond the hill. Far off, at the foot of a stretch of terraced vineyard land, a long inlet of Liber's unnamed sea shone sharply under the sunlight. “She's growing fast. She'll be as tall as her mother when she's grown at this rate.”</p><p>“Just what I need, another person I can only look in the knees.” He chortled at his own joke. “Wish I could say as much has changed here, but you know that's not how it ever is. I do less paperwork, but that's about it. Suits me and the boy fine, seeing as he never could keep me indoors to do it anyways.”</p><p>Harlock smiled. “Just as well, then. Will you be putting us up at the usual place?”</p><p>Daiba shot him a look but said nothing.</p><p>“Oh, yeah. It's standing just as strong as ever, so I figure why not.”</p><p>'The usual place' was a small wooden cabin in a remote clearing where the sounds of disturbed leaves and the lazy river competed for dominance over the scene. Harlock stepped out of the cart first. His legs were cramping.</p><p>“You boys all right to show yourselves around? I sure would love to catch up, but I got stuff to get done first.” Boudeaux was already coasting the cart out of the clearing. He added, as a total afterthought, “You got plenty to eat and so on, of course. And drink.”</p><p>“You go ahead,” Harlock said. He was distracted anyway, not by the familiar scene but by Daiba's tentative exploration of it.</p><p>It was a real contrast to Tochiro, who'd arranged their first stay at the cabin in secret. Where Daiba shifted around the clearing's perimeter in curious silence, Tochiro had bounded in and declared 'Ta-da!'</p><p>Both were quite cute.</p><p>“What do you think?”</p><p>Daiba was assessing the sturdiness of the skinny logs that supported the porch's roof. “It's really all right if we stay here?”</p><p>“More than all right,” Harlock said. “It gets hot inside, but there's a fine place to swim not far away.”</p><p>Now, Daiba was looking at <em>him</em> with the same curious, expectant expression he'd been directing at the old porch beams. The corners of his mouth had gone bunched and tight, like he was repressing a smile.</p><p>“Would you like to go swimming, Daiba?” Harlock saw no point in hiding his own fond, entertained smile.</p><p>“Uh, maybe.” Daiba reestablished his obsession with the porch's structural solidity. He wobbled the old railings, braced a foot on the swing, and even gripped a beam and leaned back from it with his full weight. If he was trying to tear the place down the create a distraction, it wasn't working. “I mean, we don't have anything to wear to swim.” He pulled at the solid collar of his flight suit. “I would probably sink in this, right?”</p><p>Harlock let out as short a laugh as he could manage and stepped up onto the porch. He moved to shoo Daiba inside. “There are always spare clothes, no worries.”</p><p>---</p><p>There <em>were</em> spare clothes.</p><p>There were <em>not</em> spare clothes suitable for swimming. Daiba knew, because he had turned the entire dresser inside out and upside down trying to find any. Everything was soft, thinned by age, and pale. Good summer clothes. Bad swimming clothes.</p><p>Harlock, true to form, had no complaints. He'd already changed. He was comfortable, even, poking around the cabin's two rooms while eating bread and cheese the old man had left behind for them. He looked shockingly normal, the eye patch aside. The baggy buttoned shirt and tie-on pants made him look as skinny as he'd felt in Daiba's arms the night before.</p><p>They also looked so, so easy to just pull off of him.</p><p>That's what they were going to do anyway, right?</p><p>Daiba swallowed and decided to distract himself fiddling with the creaky fan wedged into the bedroom window. It did get hot inside. He let the blown air wash over his wet face, down his neck. Where it stopped, of course, because he'd spent the last twenty minutes digging around for swim trunks in the same suit he wore into space.</p><p>He was a moron.</p><p>“Captain?” he called, making sure to turn away from the fan so he wouldn't sound like a robot at the bottom of a well. “How, uh, secluded is this place?”</p><p>Just asking that much had sweat tickling the backs of his knees.</p><p>“Don't start worrying about that,” Harlock said. He'd come to stand in the doorway between the bedroom and the main room, leaning on the door frame. “Liber has always been a haven for people looking to escape, and this is little hideout is far from any other settlement. There's a reason Boudeaux wanted to get a headstart on his return.”</p><p>“Oh.” Daiba forced himself to smile and shrug. He gestured to the clothes scattered on the bed. “I mean, in that case, why bother wearing a swimsuit?”</p><p>“That's a very good point,” Harlock said. And then he was gone. And then the front door opened and closed.</p><p>Daiba sat there for a moment, sweaty and pale. That wasn't supposed to happen. It was supposed to sound like a joke that he could backpedal on if Harlock said no. Even if he'd said yes, he was supposed to hang around so that Daiba could be 'talked into' it!</p><p>“Crap.” Daiba wriggled out of his suit, down to his briefs, and took a spare sheet for a beach towel. “Crap, crap, crap.”</p><p>Harlock was waiting for him in a gap in the treeline that ringed the cabin. Still dressed. Obviously. Seeing this, Daiba folded the sheet in half and slung it around his hips with elaborate nonchalance. He let the screen door bang shut behind him and walked over. It wasn't easy to ignore the subtle change in Harlock's posture – more upright and alert, a straighter neck and a more closed stance – and the way his eye swept over him.</p><p>That shift and that glance solidified for Daiba, in an instant, that their shared story had already begun to change. Their pasts would remain static, but they had already passed the point where that reality could be maintained. Stroking himself to sleep over a person he considered unattainable would become a memory soon. He had outlived an era of his life, and his one choice was to keep walking away from it and into this new one.</p><p>Harlock waited for him and then took him by the hand down a narrow gravel path. Thin new branches and wild brush crowded in and tickled his bare arms and feet. They pulled at the folds in Harlock's clothes and raked his hair. From behind, able to forget his face for a moment, Daiba could feel something else resigning itself to the world of memory: The presumed complete difference between himself and the captain.</p><p>The man rushing him through a forest in summertime was still young, still susceptible to the stirrings of real excitement over something as simple as a private swim with someone he desired. He looked skinny, was skinny, under the sheer film of his clothes because he wasn't an ageless, storied monolith. He couldn't have been much older than Daiba when Mayu was born and had spent most of his adulthood taking responsibility for her and then for everyone else on his ship.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>It was a bad time to talk. As soon as he said it, Harlock broke through the trees and dragged him out onto the smooth lip of a shaded hollow in the river. The stone that made up the basin and its embankments was smooth and dark, like slate. The whole scene was in shades of dark green and storm gray except for the yellows thrown around by unidentifiable flower heads and spots of sunshine scattered down from gaps in the rustling canopy.</p><p>“You wanted to ask me something?” Harlock was already splitting his shirt down the middle button by button, not as affected as Daiba by the sudden change of scenery.</p><p>“Oh. Uh.” Daiba ditched the sheet into a bush and crab walked into the water. It was cool, but not chilly. It was also clear, but it would do at least something to discourage and/or disguise his body's reaction to watching Harlock undress. Which he simply couldn't help but do. “It's funny, I was just about to ask how far the swimming hole was.”</p><p>“Ah.” Harlock was looking down, past his working hands. The tension in his posture had returned and it made his fingers move stiffly.</p><p>Daiba had already seen the shapes of Harlock's body through his usual clothes – the cape aside, they left little to imagine – but the subtler shapes and hidden scars were of real interest. As was the fact that his nipples were undeniably hard. As hard as Daiba's had gotten dipping into the cool water up to his shoulders. Daiba's cock twitched so hard he felt the head grate against the wet cotton he'd stubbornly left on.</p><p>As for Harlock, he was either partly hard himself or just... naturally very impressive. His pubic hair was neat and short, too, which made Daiba feel less than prepared. Because of course he would find some way to be anxious while the person he'd been jerking off to for years finally showed him his dick.</p><p>Still.</p><p>“Captain.” The sounds felt thick in his throat. He thought he sounded sick, not sexy. “Come here.”</p><p>He didn't come out here for a swim, did he?</p><p>Harlock waded in, moving in a staggered way that Daiba immediately identified with. When Daiba rose up to push their bodies together – he had to move immediately, or he might start overthinking things – he found the same tremors working underneath Harlock's skin as he'd felt every single time before. It was a sobering reminder that being around him was a real physical strain on Harlock, the underlying cause of which could only be alleviated by... doing... something.</p><p>They moved together, Harlock dropping down and Daiba leaning sharply forward to bring their mouths together. Harlock moaned and shuddered so hard that Daiba almost pulled away, afraid he'd knocked into his teeth or something. Harlock held him there, close enough to feel the heat boiling off his hips and the pulsing hardness of his cock. It rubbed on Daiba in fitful, automatic shudders that stirred the water and made Daiba's own cock strain straight up looking for relief.</p><p>It was all happening so immediately that Daiba knew he should have been overwhelmed. This was supposed to take forever. It was supposed to be awkward and weird. Instead, it was this exuberant crisis, and while he didn't feel fully prepared he at least felt responsible. He wanted to put his mouth all over Harlock and drink the heat out of him. That felt possible.</p><p>Sweat prickled his tongue when he strayed from Harlock's mouth to trace the scar on his face to the bend in his jar. Freed, Harlock's mouth released plaintive, half-voiced breaths in time with the shifting of his hips. He was spreading his legs apart, sinking down to Daiba's level. This felt as automatic and uncontrollable as the way he tried to grind on Daiba's thigh. Still sucking on his neck, Daiba used Harlock's chest and belly as a guide for his shivering hand so that he could find and grab Harlock's cock without looking down into the water.</p><p>Harlock flinched and went still, submitting fully to the touch. The high sound he made in his throat vibrated against Daiba's cheek. The sound rose again, softer, as Daiba started to draw his closed hand up and down to stroke him. Fully hard, Harlock's cock was definitely big. Not so big that Daiba felt anxious, but big enough to be very fun to play with.</p><p>“Is this good?” It was a sincere question. Jerking off a cock he couldn't feel, well, was a skill he was still developing.</p><p>Harlock's response could have been liberally interpreted as a breathy, shuddering, “Uh-huh,” but even Daiba could tell he was just trying to breathe through something intense and not lose his composure.</p><p>If being near Daiba made Harlock's body burn, what was this like?</p><p>Daiba pulled his face away from Harlock's neck. He couldn't pull very far. Harlock was still holding tight to him, trying to burrow his bright red face into Daiba's shoulder.</p><p>He <em>was</em> cute.</p><p>“Do you want me to fuck you?”</p><p>Maybe it was unfair to take a swipe at Harlock's composure like that, but the words were hard to say and Shizuka's recommendation that Daiba 'have sex' with him hadn't exactly been specific.</p><p>“Yes. Yes.” No hesitation. No justification. It was like he was speaking directly to Harlock's body, past any pretense of what he should or shouldn't want. It seemed unfair. It was also, just, really hot.</p><p>“I can't do that out here.” This was a huge disappointment. “I can make you cum, though.”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>That wouldn't be difficult. Daiba was hardly even trying, just stroking in the same rote way he'd learned to work himself to orgasm, and Harlock's cock was already twitching in the kind of frantic rhythm Daiba associated with the height of excitement. He forced himself to slow down. As responsible as he felt for Harlock in the moment, the charge of pleasuring him was intoxicating. Even as Daiba slowed his touches, lightened them to a tender stroke along the underside with the tips of his fingers, Harlock didn't complain or move. Maybe he couldn't. If the poison could overheat him, could it override his mobility when it got what it was driving him toward?</p><p>“I really love you,” Daiba said. There was the sticky thickness in his throat again, made all the more suffocating by the urges screaming along his nervous system from his untouched cock to his brain. He pushed his hips forward and moved his hand aside, sighing, grinding on Harlock with the stretched material of his briefs as a buffer between their erections. “Three days isn't enough to show you.”</p><p>Harlock moaned and held him tighter. “Dai... ba. Hahh...” Anything he was trying to say stuttered off into a string of gasps, his body arching forward. The thrill of Harlock's cum shooting out between them, briefly hot on Daiba's belly before the water chilled it, was greater than any time he'd ever jerked off. Even with his own cock hurting for relief, he felt a different satisfaction.</p><p>“Better?” Daiba asked, his voice piping. He swallowed a dry mouthful and moved his hands along Harlock's back. He was already cooling down.</p><p>It took a few moments for Harlock to move again, and even then he only shifted back to better look Daiba in the face. His face was still pink and his eye had a blissed-out glaze to it. He kissed Daiba with enviable tenderness, and Daiba let himself liquefy into it.</p><p>This had been his first shameful little fantasy about the captain, that he would kiss him easily and without any judgment. That it would happen somewhere private and quiet. Usually he set the fantasy in the captain's cabin.</p><p>He never, ever included a painful erection in that fantasy.</p><p>He pulled back. “Captain-”</p><p>“I know.” Harlock rose up to his full height and herded Daiba over to the stone shore. “Sit.”</p><p>Daiba sat. When he got up the nerve to look down at himself, he could see the head of his cock showing pink through the white cloth holding it back. It twitched as if acknowledging his rude stare. He watched Harlock kneel down in the shallow water and lean forward to tug at the waistband of his briefs. He lifted his ass to help get the off. The dark stone was warm and raspy under his wet skin.</p><p>At first, to Daiba's immense frustration, Harlock didn't even touch his cock. He kissed and dragged his teeth along his thighs, his mouth and breath chasing away the chill from the pool. The dawning knowledge that Harlock's mouth would be wrapping around his cock soon practically sent him hyperventilating. He wanted to be cool and reach down and touch Harlock's face, or grab his hair, but the stress of anticipation kept his hands balled up against his chest.</p><p>The first real contact with his dick came from a double handful of cool water that Harlock dumped on it. Daiba's hips jerked impulsively only to be met with the firm grasp of Harlock's hand as he pulled his foreskin back and ran his thumb around underneath the head. Daiba whimpered, so overcome that he could only devote so much energy to wondering if Harlock thought he was dirty or something. The promise of orgasm did a lot to stomp down the ego.</p><p>“I do love you,” Harlock said, softly, suddenly. He laid his right cheek on Daiba's thigh to look up at him with his one healthy eye. He was still drawing his hand up and down the length of Daiba's cock, closing firmly around the head on the upswing. “And I want you.”</p><p>Daiba tried, with some success, to uncurl his arms from his chest. “I want you, too,” he breathed. “I want you so bad.”</p><p>Finally, Harlock kissed his way up Daiba's thigh to lower his mouth fully over his cock. It was wet and hot inside, and not as soft as conversations with bragging peers had led him to expect. The tongue rolling against the underside of his cock was firm and strong. It was a muscle, after all. The softest part Daiba could feel was the very back of Harlock's mouth and throat, gliding over the tender head of Daiba's cock as Harlock swallowed him over and over.</p><p>It was impressive, really. Just putting a finger into the back of his mouth to prod at his stubborn wisdom teeth had made Daiba throw up before.</p><p>
  <em>If I cum, I'm gonna cum straight into his stomach at this point.</em>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a crude, gross thought that Daiba whimpered and his balls tightened up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watched Harlock through tightly narrowed eyes. Even through the lens of the water, he was such a disarming sight. Daiba found himself wishing for longer arms so he could grab his round ass while he fucked his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock was having some wishful thoughts, too, obviously. He was breathing hard into the yellow tangle above Daiba's cock, supporting himself with one arm gripping the lip of the stone while the other worked furiously between his spread legs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sight and the connection Daiba's brain made between that and pushing his cock deeper and harder into Harlock's body made Daiba yelp and cum hard. His ass lifted off the stone and he almost slipped back into the water. Harlock took this all in stride, swallowing and moaning for as long as he could keep Daiba's cock in his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While Daiba caught his breath, Harlock kept right on pleasuring himself. Daiba was finally able to open his body up and reach for Harlock, putting a hand in his hair, pulling slightly. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Let me do it.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Daiba shuffled back to give Harlock room to pull himself out of the water. The weirdness of being naked outside had abandoned him entirely, replaced by naughty exhilaration. Harlock was gorgeous perched on the water's edge, all needy and shivering with his cock curved up against his stomach. Daiba situated himself up against a tree that had muscled its way up through a crack in the stone and split it decades ago. His heart was pounding and the sore spot on his back tried in vain to pull his attention from the moment.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Show me what you were doing,” Daiba said. He had to speak stiffly to keep the tremors in his lips from transferring into his words. “I want to see how you make yourself feel good.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock obliged his curiosity. He came over to Daiba and planted a his knees far apart, as if to straddle him. Instead of lowering himself down, he reached between his spread legs and slid his middle two fingers into his ass. A shudder rippled up his body and he leaned over Daiba to brace his other forearm against the tree. Daiba's gaze flitted between Harlock's pinched expression and the hand working his fingers in and out of his body.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Do you think about me when you do that?”</span></p><p>“<span>Yes.”</span></p><p>“<span>Do you cum?” Daiba wasn't trying to give Harlock a hard time, just to learn.</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock whimpered and his hips rocked. “Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Daiba reached down to guide Harlock's hand away, Harlock's whole body pressed closer to him. Daiba braced a hand on his chest to dissuade him from collapsing on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His fingers – why play around with just one when he'd just seen Harlock use two? - went in with an ease that was frankly a huge relief to Daiba. He'd heard too many horror stories about first times that ended early, with one party buckled over in pain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock was definitely not in pain. He was rolling his hips into Daiba's hand, the slippery softness of his body squeezing down tight like it couldn't get enough. If only Daiba hadn't wasted his hard-on.</span>
</p><p>“<span>You're okay?” Daiba asked. He was already breathing hard, which was a little concerning after everything.</span></p><p>“<span>I'm fine.” Harlock swallowed. “You don't have to treat me delicately.”</span></p><p>
  <span>What if he wanted to, though?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn't like he knew what else to do. 'Do it harder,' was about all he could think of in the moment, but it was evidently enough. Harlock's lips sealed themselves against a long, choked moan and pre-cum started running down the length of his cock and into Daiba's palm. A lot of it, so much that their skin moving together created a sloppy smacking sound. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harlock came fast. His breath reached a keening pitch and cum burst out across Daiba's chest so forcefully that some rebounded and spattered underneath his chin. His hand came away equal parts slippery and sticky. He was just as breathless as Harlock, even if he hadn't gotten the least bit hard.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Better?” He leaned forward to kiss the corner of Harlock's mouth.</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock leaned into the kiss and breathed, “Yes.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Wait here.” Daiba disentangled himself from Harlock and went to swish his hands clean in the water. It took him a moment to find the white shape of the sheet he'd ditched earlier, but when he had it he wet it and brought it back over to Harlock to wring out over him so he wouldn't have to get back up to wash off. </span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock laughed weakly and dipped his head under the thin stream. “You're awfully resourceful.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Sometimes.” Daiba averted his eyes while Harlock pushed the water around on himself. As if he hadn't just finger-fucked him. “I did just soak our only towel.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock leaned back so the sun streaks could hit his face and chest. “It's hot, drying off won't be a problem. You can wear my pants back if you want.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>What, and you'll just wear the shirt?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Harlock's smile turned playful. “You don't want to risk someone else seeing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Exactly.</span>
</p><p>“<span>Of course not!”</span></p><p>
  <span>To Daiba's relief, it was left at that. They passed the next hour alternating between floating in the swimming hole and drowsing in the shade, until they both got hungry enough to brave splitting Harlock's two articles of clothing and walking back to the cabin for lunch.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The sex part continues apace.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So around 3 weeks ago a Windows update totally bricked my internet capable PC. I didn't lose any work, but I did lose a convenient way to post and a whole lot of steam I'd need to keep up with writing. The PC is now functioning and set to receive an OS transplant this weekend, so there's that. This chapter is of a pretty standard length, but it does have good old fashioned fornication in it so you have that to look forward to in exchange for your patience.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He couldn't help but feel silly having invested a half hour of the evening into washing himself up nicely. His entire body was crying for spontaneous, immediate intervention and he still forced himself through the process of making this 'nice.'</p><p>This was all new to Daiba, after all, as suggested by the way he'd disappeared himself outside to the little shower station behind the cabin the instant Harlock returned. It was only fair that Harlock make it as pleasant and as simple as possible.</p><p>After ten minutes of waiting, Harlock had arranged himself on the bed – there was only the one, consisting of a platform topped with a thick mat with storage drawers underneath – just to be off his feet.</p><p>The dizzy flips his stomach had started doing made an uneasy contrast to his urgent erection. The joints in his hips hurt. Moisture broke onto his skin faster than the cabin's one fan, appointed very strategically in the window by the bed, could push it off into the air and cool him.</p><p>Harlock turned onto his right side to look up and out the top portion of that window. The curtain was like the sheets, old and thin and soft, and it was easy to make out the shapes of clouds moving across the yellowing sky.</p><p>He loved this place. He could never be like Tochiro and love the Earth with such exclusive reverence. There were too many places worth loving in a universe too large, and it made him feel frayed and tired sometimes.</p><p>“Captain?”</p><p>Harlock hadn't even heard the door open.</p><p>“Stay just like that,” Daiba said. Harlock could hear very well, now, as Daiba made his way to the edge of the bed. “It's a nice view.”</p><p>That was so smooth Harlock was tempted to give Daiba the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn't at all anxious about looking him in the face at the moment. “It is, hm?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Daiba's weight settled on the bed. He ran a hand down Harlock's arm and side, and gooseflesh raced after it like fire chases fuel. Daiba settled behind him lengthwise, chin tucked into his shoulder and hardening cock pushing against his back.</p><p>Harlock's stomach flipped hard and he whimpered at the unpleasant tickle it sent rippling through him. Daiba took this for encouragement and buried his face in Harlock's neck, rooting around with his lips and tongue. And his teeth, probably by accident. It was a little like a sleepy drunk trying to bite out his throat, but it was good in the moment and had Harlock moaning and arching back against Daiba just to feel his cock more.</p><p>The frantic grinding and squirming was a compromise between himself and the pulsing urge to splay himself open for easy fucking. That drive startled him. Harlock <em>liked</em> to be fucked, he preferred it, but the overriding demand from his body that he bypass every other aspect of the encounter just to get a cock buried up to his belly as soon as possible was not normal.</p><p>Cypri had been right to use crass, animal language to describe the way the Mazone poison had skewed his desire for Daiba. 'Rut' was a viciously accurate word for what he wanted, which was to have Daiba holding his pliant body in place for a deep and frantic fuck that would go on and on until...</p><p>Until they'd had enough, he supposed, but it wasn't easy to think of 'enough' and 'sex' simultaneously at the moment.</p><p>Daiba's mouth left him and a hand curled around to spread over the center of his chest. “Is this okay? You're breathing really hard.”</p><p>“I'm excited.” Harlock breathed out slow and put his hand over Daiba's. It was time to tamp that urge down harder and be the partner Daiba needed. “You don't have to worry. I won't let you do anything that you'd regret.”</p><p>“Thanks.” Daiba's voice was thin, sheepish. He meant it.</p><p>Harlock rolled so they could lie face to face. He kissed Daiba's cheek and ear, tasting well water and the last notes of sharp soap. His hips kept trying to move, but he locked them in place. “You're very wanted. I haven't shared a bed with someone like this since Mayu was very small, and I'm happy it's with you.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Daiba scratched his cheek where Harlock had kissed it. “Hope I'm a good reintroduction to sex.”</p><p>“You've done fine so far and I have every confidence in you,” Harlock said. He gripped Daiba's cock and swished his thumb around in the wetness around its tip. “And we have plenty of time. No need to worry about getting everything right just now.”</p><p>It was all true, but his thighs – he couldn't stop from moving them after all – were starting to slide together from a mix of running pre-cum and the succulent slipperiness his poisoned body expressed whenever it started demanding a fuck. The sheet was already a lost cause.</p><p>Daiba was unaware of this. He had one eye pinched shut and had started absentmindedly fucking Harlock's fist. “R-right. Sure.” His hands came up to grip Harlock's shoulders. “You don't mind doing this?”</p><p>“Why would I?” Harlock asked. He shifted to sit up against the wall and took Daiba with him so he could rest with his back against Harlock's chest. And the small of his back grinding on Harlock's wet cock, but that was just a pleasant consequence of holding him like this. “What would I mind?”</p><p>“I don't know.” Daiba pressed back against him. “I mean, I do, but it's not something that applies to you. I guess.”</p><p>Harlock was shivering and sore. “You can tell me later if you want,” he said, the words taking on a pleading tinge he hadn't intended.</p><p>He could feel the subtle undulation of Daiba's body as he swallowed hard. “Yeah. I guess I'm kinda stalling for time because I don't know, uh, where to start in this...” He swiveled his head around at the room's rough wooden walls. “Environment.”</p><p>“I could show you how.” Harlock leaned forward to set his chin on Daiba's head.</p><p>“Okay.” Daiba puffed himself up with a big breath and slipped out of Harlock's arms. Harlock followed him, arranging himself with his head between Daiba's legs and his mouth poised over his bobbing cock. “Spit? Really?”</p><p>“Why not?” Harlock leaned down just as Daiba was arching up and the length of Daiba's erection pushed past Harlock's lips, held down his tongue, pressed on the back of his throat.</p><p>Harlock worked him, nodding his head deep until his nose was pushing into the hair over Daiba's shaft, resisting the urge to swallow so that on every breath the inhales made vulgar sipping sounds.</p><p>“Captainnn...” It didn't take long for Daiba to start pulling at Harlock's hair. “I can't take too much of this. Sorry.”</p><p>That wouldn't be necessary. Harlock broke off from Daiba and a long glassy trail connected his lips and Daiba's cock for a second before dropping away onto the sheets. He fell onto his back with his legs spread and bent at the knees, shivering. He'd been shivering the whole time, but the friction between the sheets and his trembling muscles made it impossible to overlook. It was time, and his body showed its knowledge of this with hips that kept trying to rise, to reach.</p><p>Daiba was looking between his legs, scrutinizing him. It made him shiver harder and the fluttering in his stomach tighten and intensify into dull throbs.</p><p>“I'm ready,” Harlock breathed. “Hurry.”</p><p>The strain in his voice must have shocked Daiba, because he flinched and his face softened briefly in what was clearly guilt. He closed the space between them and braced his hands on the backs of Harlock's thighs to lean in close, almost as if to cover and envelop him as much as he could manage.</p><p>Harlock's body accepted the slow push of Daiba's cock into his ass with no real resistance, and he felt every inch of it going in. A sound that wanted to be a sob surged up his throat. Daiba's breath crashed against his chest. When Daiba started moving, a deep compulsion gripped Harlock and held him in place, forced him to feel the long drag on his gripping insides. It told him to lie still and accept this awaited, owed moment for all it could give him.</p><p>It wasn't exactly easy to do anything else. The physical, chemical cascade set off in his body was overwhelming; he had to adjust. This was more than the rush of ending years of celibacy, it was the poison, he was sure of it. Flaring up, dying away, mingling with some euphoric cocktail his brain was making, he didn't know. Inside Harlock's head, he was grasping for the presence of mind to assess the situation. Outside his head, his body was a moaning, arching embodiment of need.</p><p>“It's good, huh?” Daiba's voice, breathless, opened Harlock's eye back up. The wooden crossbeams overhead jerked back and forth in his vision every time Daiba's hips snapped against his.</p><p>“It's so good!” He didn't know if he had lost control of himself or relinquished the same, only that it had vanished and taken his concern for the poison with it. The sound of Daiba's voice, the weight of his body, the pressure of his cock massaging and pounding him from the inside, made it too hard and too unappealing to hold on.</p><p>“You're good, too.” Daiba was panting and grinning through shivering lips when Harlock lifted his head to watch him. “It's so- You're so tight it's not easy to move.”</p><p>As much as Harlock wanted to tell him he was doing just fine, Daiba was doing so well rocking the length of his cock in and out of his hole that the words fell apart halfway up his throat. Somewhere at the apex of Daiba's reach, there was a deep spot so tender that every inward thrust jolted him to the brink of orgasm and let him down just long enough for Daiba's hammering cock to draw back again.</p><p>And Daiba's pace wouldn't slow, that much was evident. He didn't have that level of control over himself, as lost as Harlock was for different reasons. He was murmuring indistinctly between sighs and whines, building to a choking gasp and a thrust that drove his cock straight in to fire off.</p><p>Harlock gasped and grit his teeth, hips shuddering hard. He could <em>feel</em> Daiba cumming. The violent pulsing of the cock inside him held him in that torturous state of not-quite-cumming for as long as Daiba's seed rushed into him. Not too long, but longer than he felt he could handle.</p><p>When Daiba started to straighten up, Harlock raised his jellied arms to grab him. He failed, but it didn't matter. Daiba didn't move off of him. He didn't even pull out. He just scooped his hands under Harlock's knees and lifted his hips off the bed, folding him back a bit. His cock slid back, but not out.</p><p>“I'm fine.” Daiba swallowed. He looked exhausted and, frankly, feral. “I can keep going. You're close, right?”</p><p>Of course he was. His cock had been trying to cum for what felt like hours, spilling so much clear fluid onto his stomach that in this new position it was running in a little track to the cleft in his chest. He nodded. He tasted blood from chewing his lips.</p><p>The weight of Daiba's body drove his hips down with a harsh smack, and Harlock's ears popped.</p><p>“Daiba!” Harlock's legs briefly fought Daiba's hold, trying to close around him and hold him. If he could hold him, he wouldn't have to feel that mind-wiping stab of sensation again. That's what he could tell himself about the impulse. He couldn't lie to Daiba, though. “Harder!”</p><p>Daiba obliged, fucking Harlock to the pace of his own frenzied breathing. On every exhale, he drove his cock down into Harlock. Harlock was overwhelmed again in moments. He knew he looked pitiful when Daiba sought his face out again through the yellow curtain of his hair.</p><p>“You're-” He swallowed hard. His cock was pulsing again. “You're getting tighter. You're gonna cum soon, aren't you?”</p><p>“I am, I-” It was hard to be sure between the assault on his senses and the way his body shuddered and convulsed under it. It was as much as he'd ever felt trying to knead the poison out himself. “I'm cumming, Daiba, please. Please...”</p><p>He was babbling. He didn't know what he was pleading for until, just as he was regaining the breath he'd wasted talking, Daiba came again and he could feel it just as clearly as the first time. Only now it was forcing itself deep, deep into him, crashing over the delicate spot Daiba had been tenderizing and lighting his nerves up with its warmth.</p><p>The orgasm that seized his body forced a long, high, inarticulate cry out of him and set all his muscles clamping down. His fingers twisted into fists in the sheet and his legs slipped free of Daiba's sweaty palms to lock his hips in place. His insides rolled and quaked, sealed so tight around Daiba's spurting cock that even as he rode out the end of his climax he was on the brink of overwhelm from being filled.</p><p>When it was over, he felt as though his chest might have caved in. Daiba disentangled from him once he could get free and came up to the head of the bed to stroke his face and push their flushed cheeks together.</p><p>“You're okay?”</p><p>Harlock brought a hand up to root his fingers in Daiba's hair. He made his weak smile wider. “I'm just fine. That was wonderful.”</p><p>“But you're not hurt?”</p><p>How bold of Daiba to assume he could hurt him that easily. Harlock expanded his sore chest. “No, I'm just very worn out now. I could stand to eat something besides hard bread and cheese.”</p><p>That perked Daiba right up. “Want some fish instead?”</p><p>“You don't have to go catch me a fish, and I won't just wait while you do.” No use. He was already out the door and in the main room.</p><p>Daiba peeped his head around the door jamb to pout at him. There was no other word for it. “I caught them while you were in the shower. It's not hard.”</p><p>“Ah.” Harlock returned Daiba's pout with a smile and rolled onto his side so that the fan could cool his back. “Forgive the assumption. And thank you.”</p><p>Daiba grinned and zipped away, presumably to clean himself off and fix dinner. Harlock would leave the bed, too, eventually. For the moment he was content to luxuriate in feeling satisfied for the first time in ages.</p><p>It was raining, the kind of hard summer rain that thumps on rooftops and windows like grapes falling from the sky. The temperature had dropped and the wind raking the cabin walls forced the coolness in through a thousand tiny gaps. It was almost like having air conditioning.</p><p>They had eaten, and now they were drinking. The cabin had no wine cellar, but it did have a convenient stone-lined hollow a couple feet deep, the contents of which were mostly bottles of wine, under a trap door. A short rummage in the cabin's dusty cupboards had uncovered glasses fit for drinking.</p><p>So they drank under the yellow light thrown from two heavy glass lanterns Harlock had been patient enough to set up. Their tall chimneys were embossed with swooping arabesque shapes that gave the light a rippling effect whenever the storm drafts managed to whisk the flames back and forth.</p><p>“How often did you used to come here?” Daiba asked once he'd swallowed enough white wine to get curious.</p><p>The cabin's main room was short on places to sit – Daiba got the impression that it was a space for sleeping and getting out of the weather between long stretches of time outside, not for spending any real time in – and Harlock had staked out the top of a long cupboard under a windows for his spot. It let him stretch his legs out in front of him and gave him a place to set his glass within reach. He picked the glass up off the floor and took a swallow from it. “We visited often, but I don't think we stayed overnight more than twice a year.”</p><p>“So it's kind of a vacation spot,” Daiba said, considering the rim of his own glass. He'd settled on the floor with a collection of scavenged books arranged around him. The yellowing around their edges made them more interesting, somehow. He smiled to himself. “I don't think I've been on anything like a vacation since I was a little kid.”</p><p>After all, the pirate island may have been fun but it wasn't... removed. As much as it functioned on its own, it had been an extension of life aboard the Arcadia designed for that purpose. Liber was its own place, and that made it special even if Daiba couldn't put words to why that was.</p><p>“How do you like the experience now that you're grown?” Harlock asked, tilting his head just enough to make eye contact with Daiba. He'd settled in with his blind side to the room, which made Daiba feel special and trusted.</p><p>“It's different. No one's chased me around trying to make me put on my sunscreen yet, but we're not on Earth so I guess that's less of a concern.”</p><p>“That's very true,” Harlock said, his tone turning thoughtful. “I would like to show Mayu this place someday.”</p><p>Daiba could feel his face heating up in defiance of the cool drafts. “I don't know how I'd feel about Mayu staying here anytime soon,” he said, before he could realize he ought to not say it.</p><p>To his relief, Harlock took no obvious offense. His mouth twisted up and his chest rolled a little under the shirt he'd claimed. He was trying not to laugh, and not even making an effort to hide that. “Parents live their adult lives in the same homes where they raise their children. It's the way children happen in the first place, after all. This isn't so different.”</p><p>Cool, wet air tried to condense on Daiba's warm face and he scrubbed at his cheeks. Left to his own thoughts, he seldom came close to contemplating that particular reality. To be with Harlock was not to be with Harlock alone. Mayu was Harlock's daughter for all intents and purposes, and to be with him was to become something to her even if Daiba couldn't concretely work out what that thing could be. It wasn't easy to put himself in the same place as his father on those vacations, the fastidious keeper of plans and timelines, the clever set of hands that cleaned fish and made music from reeds and grasses. He couldn't see himself becoming anything more than the boy running ahead of father and mother both, holding his hat down to spite the wind and yelling for harried mother and aging father to hurry.</p><p>He wound up saying, “No, I guess not,” and getting up to join Harlock by the window. He pulled Harlock's feet into his lap and sat cross-legged on the top of the long cupboard, pressed into the corner of the window casing. “And I'm happy it's not.”</p><p>It could have been a cute reading nook if someone had bothered to put a cushion down on it.</p><p>“Oh?” Harlock was watching him. “I'm glad, but I don't follow exactly what you mean by that.”</p><p>Daiba cleared his throat and started scanning the upper corners of the window for cobwebs worth staring at. “I mean, you know, I'm happy you think it's not different from a family. Like you trust me to be responsible and stuff.”</p><p>This time Harlock didn't bother trying not to laugh. He pulled his legs back so that he could cross them and lean forward and push their foreheads together. “I have every confidence in you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The past 30 days have been very demanding. Here's a bunch of porngography.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They hadn't eaten yet, but it was still cool enough that it must have been early.</p>
<p>Harlock had woken him when it was still chilly and dark, his body hot and needy again, and Daiba's body had met the call without hesitation. Or maybe their bodies woke them independently and directed them to one another.</p>
<p>Maybe the heat had jumped from Harlock's body and onto Daiba, like fire moves from treetop to treetop with the wind. The looming possibility took up very little space in Daiba's brain, which he knew should bother him. His body overruled his brain that morning, demanding that he indulge Harlock's needs and fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.</p>
<p>Waking, fucking, sleeping, and repeating that pattern according to demand had become their routine for that morning. It was like being sick. They rested lightly and woke in regular intervals to medicate with each other's bodies and sweat out the fever so they could sleep again.</p>
<p>He had Harlock on his knees this time, bent over so his ass was available and he could rest his arms and chest on the bare mattress. The floor would be easier to wipe clean than the bed, considering the sheet was still outside drying from its rainstorm bath. He may have missed seeing Harlock's face, but watching his hands grasp and clutch at nothing while his back arched was still good.</p>
<p>Keeping his legs down on the floor where they couldn't lock Daiba's hips in place helped, too. The sickness worked differently on Daiba; it burned him up with the irrepressible urge to keep pumping away at Harlock until he was more than spent.</p>
<p>Daiba couldn't imagine Mazone acting this way, even drugged. Not even Shizuka, who was different from most Mazone he'd encountered in some profound way, was someone he could imagine fucking or being fucked. The frenzy was incompatible with them.</p>
<p>No wonder they'd relied on that gross concoction before they found a way to reproduce without touching each other at all.</p>
<p>Daiba bent down further, hands sliding from the dips they'd pressed into Harlock's hips up his sides to wrap around his chest, as if the contact would clear his brain a little. With his belly pressing on Harlock's back, he let his hips grind away with his cock stirring shallowly inside. As long as he kept moving somehow, his body wouldn't complain.</p>
<p>The space between Harlock's shoulders tasted salty. Mazone didn't even sweat.</p>
<p>“Daiba.”</p>
<p>“You okay?”</p>
<p>“You stopped.”</p>
<p>Daiba's tenuous comfort with the position and pace wouldn't stop Harlock from getting aggravated, of course. That was fair. The frenzy took his strength from him and left the responsibility for his satisfaction completely up to Daiba.</p>
<p>“I just slowed down,” Daiba said. He pressed his cheek against Harlock's back to hear his battering heart. “Isn't it hard on you when I'm rough and it's over fast?”</p>
<p>Harlock moaned and raised up weakly against Daiba. Whether he was trying to throw him off or drive Daiba's cock deeper into himself, Daiba couldn't be sure. When that failed, he slumped onto the bed again. “It is,” he admitted. “I'm so tired.”</p>
<p>Now Daiba felt like a jerk. That was happening to him a lot lately. “I'm gonna spoil you after this.” He gripped Harlock's hips and rocked back into him, and to his great satisfaction Harlock groaned instead of chuckling at his promise.</p>
<p>He meant it, too. Once they finished up, he'd let Harlock sleep for however long. If he had to jerk himself dry or spend half the morning underneath the cold stream of the outdoor shower, so be it.</p>
<p>It was easy to feel resolved in that while his body was getting exactly what it asked for, of course. Sex made a lot of things easy in the moment. Things like ignoring the unnatural effluence of colorless, odorless mucous substance that made it possible to flip Harlock over and slot into him the moment their bodies woke them. Like accepting the way his touch immobilized Harlock even if the strange fever was gone. Like anticipating with increasing excitement the achy tightness that built up behind his cock the closer he got to shooting off. Like comfort, however uneasy, with this animal takeover of both their bodies.</p>
<p>Harlock was murmuring Daiba's name softly, plaintively, as his hips rolled and his body's grip on Daiba's cock pulsed tighter and tighter. The words spiraled and sputtered out into a keening sound and Daiba felt the warm ricochet of Harlock's climax hitting the floor and spattering onto his knees. The slick walls of Harlock's hole clamped down on Daiba hard as if trying to hold him, and when the convulsions uncorked the tightness in his balls he wound up doubled over Harlock's back and whimpering as seed was pulled and pulled from him until he felt empty and raw.</p>
<p>He crumpled backward in an awkward sprawl on the floor once it was over. When he had his breath back, he slipped away to wet some rags in the rain barrel by the cabin's porch and brought them back to clean Harlock off. It wouldn't do for him to sleep covered in sweat and slime.</p>
<p>By the time Daiba got back, Harlock had re-positioned himself in a lazy slump on the floor, back against the side of the bed, one leg bent up so he could rest his head and one arm on his knee. Daiba made sure that he looked up and acknowledged him before coming over to rearrange him. Harlock accepted this and the ensuing wipedown that started with his damp, flushed face and worked all the way down to his knees.</p>
<p>Toward the end, Harlock leaned forward and scooped his hand around the back of Daiba's head to hold him in place for a kiss. Daiba sighed into it and forgot the undignified rawness of their situation.</p>
<p>It was so nice.</p>
<p>It was so easy.</p>
<p>It carried a promise of more moments like that.</p>
<p>“You're really okay?” Daiba asked.</p>
<p>Harlock put his arms around Daiba's shoulders and used him as a support to get himself up and into bed. “Still a bit legless.”</p>
<p>“Just try and get to sleep before the sun comes all the way up and it gets hot,” Daiba said. It was tempting to say, 'I told you so,' but that wouldn't jibe with his offer to dote on him. “Sleep as long as you need.”</p>
<p>“I'll do my best.” Harlock stretched out and sighed. “Boudeaux might come with food for us. Don't panic if he comes around.”</p>
<p>Daiba blushed. Okay, so it hadn't escaped Harlock's notice that he wasn't crazy about the weird old man. “Didn't he say we had plenty of food?”</p>
<p>“He likes to waste time and visit if he can get away with it.” Harlock turned onto his side to smile at Daiba. “He's probably curious about you, too. Tochiro was the last person I came here with.”</p>
<p>The name hung in the summer haze between them. Harlock almost never spoke the name, only the relation. My precious friend. Mayu's father. Even if Daiba knew the dead man's name, even if it was no revelation, hearing Harlock say it with any kind of casualness made him nervous somehow. He felt like he'd earned some deep, irrevocable responsibility.</p>
<p>Daiba straightened up. Better not to look shaken. “I'll keep him occupied so he doesn't wake you. He can come back tonight if he's that bored.”</p>
<p>“Thank you.” Harlock exhaled the words like he was releasing a responsibility of his own. He closed his eye and pulled his knees up a little.</p>
<p>Daiba waited a few moments before slinking over to grab a fraying pair of shorts from the dresser. He tried to tell himself he wouldn't be so self conscious if he didn't know the old man might swing by, but that was a lie. The further he got from being horny, the more aware he was that he was walking around stark naked in a house with no real shades or curtains.</p>
<p>He'd even gone outside! His parents would be horrified!</p>
<p>Hadn't the last thing his father ever said to him been, 'You're a weird kid?'</p>
<p>And he was. He was so weird that thinking about that didn't even make him all the sad. He'd loved his father, and he missed him. But that hadn't been the first time he'd said that to him, and Daiba was relieved he wouldn't hear that voice saying those words to him ever again.</p>
<p>“I'm not glad they're dead,” he said, quietly, and to no one but himself. He took a shirt, too, pulled it around himself but left it hanging open. “It's just easier this way.”</p>
<p>It was easier. This way, he could live his life and not risk damaging his memories of them. Daiba loved them, but they were brought up on the same degenerate Earth his father decried. This way, he could never risk knowing for sure how they would react to having a son who had sex with and loved other men. The dead could be loved selectively.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Harlock only woke up when his hunger outgrew his shrinking fatigue, and even then he was reluctant to move around or even open his eye. Between the breeze from the window fan and the thin sheet Daiba had scrounged up to cover him with, he was in a perfect state of barely-warm coziness that he hadn't enjoyed in a while.</p>
<p>He was also miserably hungry. And he smelled food. He smelled cooking meat specifically, which meant that the day's delivery of fresh food and gossip had indeed arrived. His stomach made a rude churning sound, which he took as his final warning to get up immediately before it became unbearable. He didn't need to spoil his good mood going hungry.</p>
<p>“Daiba,” he called.</p>
<p>There was a light clattering. Harlock's attempt not to startle Daiba by suddenly appearing had backfired. “Sorry! I was trying to be quiet.”</p>
<p>“I want food more than sleep now anyway.” Harlock brought the sheet with him when he got up. He folded it in half and looped it around his hips. It was hot and he felt lazy, but walking in naked would probably still startled Daiba. He slipped into the main room where Daiba was poking at a pan set over the little wood burning stove. “What are you cooking?”</p>
<p>Daiba glanced up and locked on to him for a long moment. Harlock could see his throat working. “Cooking off bacon for sandwiches. Since there's no rice. And it's gonna go bad with no fridge.”</p>
<p>“Save the fat and I'll make you something nice tonight.” Harlock went to take his spot at the windows. The sun outside was high and strong. It was late. “It's not fair if you do everything.”</p>
<p>“I guess.” Daiba mopped his face with the corner of his shirt. “What do you make with old bacon fat, anyway?”</p>
<p>“It's a surprise,” Harlock said, mostly because what he intended to make didn't sound at all good when simply described. “What else did he bring?”</p>
<p>“Milk and chicken eggs and fresh bread. And beer. He brought that with ice, if you want some now.”</p>
<p>Harlock couldn't repress a smile. “You left the beer in the ice and you're cooking the meat.”</p>
<p>“You can't cook beer and make it last longer!” Daiba paused, fidgeting. “Can you?”</p>
<p>“Have you had some yet?” Harlock asked, rising again.</p>
<p>Daiba was practically pouting. “Of course I have.”</p>
<p>The tub of ice was stashed in a dark corner away from the stove and the sunlight and draped in a big floral print towel. One large, empty bottle was set off to the side. Harlock took one of the seven remaining ones and made a mental note to keep an eye on Daiba. Cooking bacon while drunk was a risky endeavor.</p>
<p>“Looks like you have a pretty good tolerance for alcohol now.”</p>
<p>“I <em>am</em> bigger than I used to be,” Daiba pointed out. “Besides, it's just beer. Kids my age drank beer on Earth when I was there.”</p>
<p>Harlock opened his drink and downed as much of it as he could before the cold sting in the back of his throat got to be too much. “And you didn't?”</p>
<p>“I didn't do a lot of things,” Daiba said, shrugging.</p>
<p>“I suppose that's true for everyone, one way or another.”</p>
<p>“Related to that, I wanna eat outside today.”</p>
<p>Harlock tilted his head to one side. “How is that related?”</p>
<p>“I didn't date, either,” Daiba said. He shrugged his shoulders right up to his bright pink ears. “I want to go on a picnic with somebody I like while there's an opportunity.”</p>
<p>Harlock smiled. 'Somebody I like.' Cute. He drifted behind Daiba and leaned around to kiss him on the cheek. “I'd like that a lot. I know a perfect place.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The walk out to Harlock's 'perfect place' wasn't a short one by Daiba's hunger-adjusted standards. By the time they'd reached the little wooded hill overlooking the nearby sea, he was more interested in tearing into the sack of food they'd brought than in praising Harlock's long memory and great taste in picnic spots.</p>
<p>“Regret skipping breakfast?” Harlock asked while he shook their freshly dried sheet out under a tree. He'd taken the task of carrying the bottles and other heavier day trip supplies.</p>
<p>Daiba already had half a sandwich packed into the back of his mouth. Swallowing it to reply felt like very slowly being punched in the chest. “I was up early doing hard work. It builds an appetite.”</p>
<p>He thought that line was worth the slow motion lung punch.</p>
<p>“And I wasn't?” Harlock pretended at offense, turning his nose up. It was... pleasantly weird to see him in a playful mood.</p>
<p>“You started eating the minute you got up,” Daiba countered. He went to join Harlock under the tree and tried not to fidget.</p>
<p>“A man ought to eat when he's hungry,” Harlock said. He leaned back against the tree's blue-gray trunk and looked out at the sea and the settlements clustering at its edge. “Especially if he's been hard at work.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well.” Daiba tried to look half as thoughtful and dignified as Harlock did. “I don't think I could live like a farmer.”</p>
<p>“The people here couldn't live like pirates,” Harlock said. “Or they wouldn't like to, depending.”</p>
<p>Daiba nodded and was quiet for a while. “I'm glad there are people from Earth settled out here.”</p>
<p>Or were they people from Liber 0 now? How many years or generations did the status of being from anywhere last? Where was Zoll from, or Mayu?</p>
<p>As if sensing Daiba's philosophical spiral, Harlock leaned on him. He was heavy and warm through the threadbare clothes they had to make do with. “Seeds from Earth are an irrepressible kind,” he said. “And adaptable.”</p>
<p>“I don't know how I feel about calling us seeds.”</p>
<p>“Because of the Mazone.”</p>
<p>Daiba cringed. “Yeah. That's stupid, isn't it?”</p>
<p>It didn't feel stupid, but he knew that it looked stupid.</p>
<p>“I don't know,” Harlock said. “And I don't know if all Mazone can be thought of as literal seeds, either.”</p>
<p>This was it? This was really the conversation he'd be having on his nice little date? Daiba was disgusted at his own traitorous curiosity.</p>
<p>“But they're basically plants, aren't they?”</p>
<p>“Some may be more like humans than others,” Harlock said. “There's an obvious hierarchy, and it's based on heredity. Before our escape, the head officer of that station would try and hold court with me for her amusement and she talked some about that. She was pale, too, barely green at all, like their queen is.”</p>
<p>Daiba decided to shrug this off. “Birch bark is white.”</p>
<p>Sudden tension surged into Harlock's muscles and Daiba felt the subtle shift. For a second, he was afraid he was about to pull away from him. “Some of them are like humans in the most terrible ways,” Harlock said. “And some of the best, like I believe that boy is.”</p>
<p>“Their ruling classes are similar to us, and they hate us.” Anger brought the words out sharper than Daiba had wanted.</p>
<p>“I doubt they see it that way,” Harlock said. Daiba felt Harlock's arm slide between the tree trunk and his back to loop around his shoulders. The comforting gesture did no such thing for Daiba. “And they hate those parts of themselves as much as they hate us.”</p>
<p>He didn't want this. He didn't want to think about Mazone or Harlock's time with them at all. He didn't want to associate the emotion under that tension with what they'd done to him.</p>
<p>He didn't want to think about some stranger, some enemy, trying to coerce him into this situation Daiba had been enjoying.</p>
<p>He leaned hard into Harlock. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.”</p>
<p>If he was being selfish, he didn't care.</p>
<p>“You don't have to say more than that,” Harlock said. “What would you rather do, though?”</p>
<p>Daiba swallowed.</p>
<p>There was nobody around.</p>
<p>Even with their view of Liber's settlements, they were effectively very isolated.</p>
<p>But he'd already been selfish once.</p>
<p>“Let's have a drink and just... be quiet and relaxed for as long as we can put up with it.”</p>
<p>“You don't think you can wait until the sun goes down?” Harlock's tone was playful, and he was already reaching for a bottle of wine to pry open. It wouldn't be cold, which Daiba knew he would find disgusting, but he'd been told that it wasn't always supposed to be cold.</p>
<p>Daiba took the bottle from Harlock and took several long, confident, terrible swallows from it. They'd shared plenty of fluids, so some backwash wouldn't hurt anyone. Also, it kept his mouth busy while he considered the question.</p>
<p>“Sun up, sun down. It won't matter when we're in space again.”</p>
<p>Harlock chuckled. He took the bottle for himself and sipped from it. “I do wish I had my ocarina. Or you had your harmonica.”</p>
<p>“What, you can't sing?”</p>
<p>“Without accompaniment, I prefer not to.”</p>
<p>Daiba squirmed. “Are you trying to get me to sing you a song?”</p>
<p>“You did say that the computer plays songs sometimes,” Harlock said with an offhandedness that felt laborious. “Do you remember any good ones?”</p>
<p>“I remember the one about the beach,” Daiba said, for no other reason but the sight of the sea in the distance. How could Harlock suggest he sing those songs and then ask him to remember – or even think about – anything? It was very unfair.</p>
<p>“Sing it.” Harlock pulled Daiba over so that his chest and Daiba's chest overlapped and held him. “There are so- I don't... remember which one that is.”</p>
<p>Why did that make Daiba feel guilty?</p>
<p>Oh, right. Because if the song had been forgotten, there was a chance Daiba would replace it with the one that his voice produced. There was a possibility that he could overwrite something important.</p>
<p>But, if Harlock was asking, was that so bad?</p>
<p>“A walk on the shore in the morning brings me back to times gone by,” Daiba began. He forced confidence into his voice, less worried about forgetting the words than about suddenly losing his voice. “On the sound of the wind that scatters the clouds, on the waves and the colorful shells.”</p>
<p>Harlock wouldn't let him forget the words.</p>
<p>“And when I walk the shore in the evening, I'm reminded of those I have known.” He could feel Harlock's voice against his back, the same way he had years before. It was soothing, steadying, and exciting. Just like before. “On the waves that crest and ebb away, in the light of the moon and the stars.”</p>
<p>They sang for a long time and drank so much that they had to hold frequent intermissions. By the time Daiba realized he'd started rambling between songs, he was far too drunk to care. He was the first one to doze off, pressed up against Harlock's side as if he wasn't warm enough between the booze and the late summer sun.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Daiba was hard and grinding on him.</p>
<p>He was also, importantly, fast asleep.</p>
<p>The sun was going down and the temperature was dropping, and that had woken Harlock before Daiba even started moving. He'd just been watching him sleep, enjoying the quiet moment before they'd have to head back to the cabin to beat nightfall. For the few minutes Daiba had been still, Harlock had basked in how peaceful and still he was. Daiba deserved those moments.</p>
<p>Whatever Daiba deserved, his body was demanding something different by way of rocking his hot cock against Harlock's thighs, and Harlock's body had started to respond in a way that had become predictable. It was readying itself, and it was commanding him. It commanded with pain from arousal so strong and deep he couldn't determine if the pain was rooted in the base of his cock or the pit of his stomach.</p>
<p>It must have been his heavy breathing that brought Daiba around. He couldn't control that. Or he didn't want to.</p>
<p>“Captain.” Daiba's voice was thick from sleep, but it was lucid. He slid up Harlock's body, rooting with his nose and teeth, sucking and kissing through Harlock's shirt until he reached his neck. “You're ready, right?”</p>
<p>No shame, no apologies. That was fine.</p>
<p>“Yes.” Harlock lifted his hips to press against Daiba and felt the breeze lick at his ass through damp clothes. “I'm so ready.”</p>
<p>Daiba's warm eyes were dark and dancing, a mixture of seriousness and mischief. He stood up to shake his clothes off and weigh the pile down with an empty bottle. “Stay on your back and don't move.”</p>
<p>He did. Between the pain and the head rush of intense arousal, it was hard to do much else anyway. He did deign to lift his hips and roll his back when Daiba stripped him, and Daiba didn't complain.</p>
<p>“You're gorgeous,” Daiba breathed. He was kneeling by Harlock, smoothing his hands over his chest, the red head of his cock perking and bobbing just beside Harlock's face. It would have been so easy to just roll over and start sucking it. “Will you let me try something?”</p>
<p>“Anything,” Harlock said, the tremor in his body working into his voice. He meant it, because he knew Daiba wouldn't harm him.</p>
<p>Daiba situated himself between Harlock's spread legs. It was impossible for Harlock to take his eye off the rigid cock pointing at him. “I think we had to keep doing it so much this morning because of how I had you, uh, because of my methods.”</p>
<p>How long would he call this 'doing it?'</p>
<p>“Oh?” It was cold between Harlock's legs and he wanted Daiba to heat him up.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Daiba lifted Harlock's legs by the backs of his knees and pushed back, folding him so that his hips lifted off the ground. “I did it kind of like this the first time, and we only had to do it once.”</p>
<p>Harlock swallowed. “That's true.”</p>
<p>It was true, but being opened up and pinned down with the heat of Daiba's cock pressed uselessly against the surface of his skin <em>actually hurt.</em></p>
<p>“It could be that being in a position like this releases more oxytocin, or... or something.” Daiba was already out of breath. “Whatever it is you need. Maybe this does-”</p>
<p>“What I need right now is your cock in me,” Harlock said, not flatly, not huskily, but desperately. The words crowded each other on the way out of his mouth. He let his head roll to one side to try and hide the bright color shame was painting his face.</p>
<p>“I'm sorry.” Daiba leaned forward and Harlock could feel the hot end of his cock lining up with his hole. “Look at me?”</p>
<p>Harlock looked back up at Daiba. He could feel Daiba admiring and adoring him. This lasted only a few seconds before sensation wiped his mind. Harlock was slick enough that Daiba's cock pushed inside with just a shift in his weight. They both gasped.</p>
<p>“God.” Daiba was already pumping away, gripping Harlock hard as if to ground himself. “God, your ass is still so tight. It's like it's sucking on me.”</p>
<p>Any other time, Harlock might have had the presence of mind to appreciate the revelation that Daiba could have a dirty mouth once he got going. He was too far gone, though. The poison made him too tender to think, made his body a lightning rod for sensation that rapidly overwhelmed him. He couldn't just feel Daiba's cock stroking him from the inside, he could feel it twitching and jerking between thrusts.</p>
<p>He felt everything. Most acutely, he felt the dizzying crest of sensation at the apex of Daiba's thrusts, that resistance, that reluctant stretch and pinch. It made him whimper, and Daiba eventually noticed. He folded Harlock further back and rocked his hips hard, kneading that deep tightness with the head of his cock. Harlock moaned.</p>
<p>“Does it hurt?” Daiba huffed.</p>
<p>Harlock shook his head, swallowing, gasping. It didn't hurt in any way that he could make Daiba understand.</p>
<p>Another experimental push. Harlock's mouth hung open and his eye pinched shut. He forced himself to take long, considerate breaths. Push. <em>Push</em>.</p>
<p>The stretching pinch blossomed into a sharp pleasure that rippled out to the rest of Harlock's body and made his hips buck.</p>
<p>“Ungh!” Daiba was the only one who made a sound when the last couple inches of his cock forced their way into Harlock. Harlock was shocked into silence, just gasping and adjusting.</p>
<p>He could feel Daiba's heartbeat through his cock like his body had vacuum sealed around it.</p>
<p>When Daiba finally moved again, the sensation that tore through Harlock was as intense and urgent as holding the back of his hand to a hot engine block. Something had happened. Something about the situation had changed. The experience wasn't painful, but it was so intense that he couldn't deny that it was a foreign, unnatural pleasure. It was enraptured panic.</p>
<p>He forced his eye to open and watched Daiba's face through a foggy screen. Daiba was lost, too, puffing away and trembling as his hips kept cracking against Harlock's spread ass. Should he tell Daiba to stop? Even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't. He couldn't get the breath to speak.</p>
<p>He couldn't lift his arms, couldn't make his legs close around Daiba's hips just to give him a few moments to think and breathe. Even once he found some spaces in Daiba's brutal pace where he could get breaths deep enough to make sounds, he couldn't marshal his mind and body long enough to make words. The deep, hard jabs forced the breath out as wordless pleasure sounds that came through his throat high and pitiful. He was a captive in his own body, and all he could do was-</p>
<p>All he could do-</p>
<p>“Nnnghaah!”</p>
<p>All he could do was cum. Just lie there and cum while Daiba kept right on fucking him. While Daiba unloaded into him, the shot drawn out by convulsions that Harlock could feel gripping and stroking at Daiba's cock. He shouldn't have been able to feel so much.</p>
<p>“Oh, God,” Daiba mumbled, still bearing down on him. “I can't stop. I don't wanna stop. I can't. I'm sorry. Ah...”</p>
<p>Harlock didn't care. The poison had made his body into a stupid thing that lived to cum and be fucked, and he was cumming again before he could even get his breath back. His legs didn't try to snap shut around Daiba's hips like before. They remained splayed open, the tremors concentrated in his hips and the small of his back.</p>
<p>The sky was darkening overhead, and they were locked in a chain reaction. Harlock would cum, his body clamping down on Daiba's cock, and the resulting forceful bursts into Harlock's ass would drive him to the brink of climax all over again. Sex had become a single long, rolling orgasm that peaked and plateaued but never let up. Eventually, Daiba was bowed over him, his sweaty hair dragging along Harlock's chest.</p>
<p>Because Harlock could barely move, it was Daiba who eventually managed to break the cycle. He pulled way, way back, gasping hard when he got his cock out in the open air again. Harlock's body had gripped it, but not half as hard as before.</p>
<p>A whine slipped its way up Harlock's throat, but he felt no urge to try and drag Daiba back down. He was glad for the chance to really breathe, and he'd been soft for a while. When Daiba came over to inspect him and push his wet hair away from his good eye, he gathered up what little strength had returned to him and nuzzled his cheek into Daiba's hand.</p>
<p>“How do you feel?” he asked once a moment had passed without Daiba asking the same.</p>
<p>“Dehydrated.”</p>
<p>Harlock smiled and gathered some more air so that he could reply. “Drinking hard and working outdoors will do that,” he said. He folded his hands over his stomach and looked up into space. The sky was bright. They could still walk home. “It's a shame we can't sleep out here. Not with what we brought.”</p>
<p>Daiba grimaced. “Drink some water and take as long a break as you want, but I'm not camping with no shelter and no clean clothes.” Harlock had to wonder if he realized how fussy this sounded coming from a pirate.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The contraption that Daiba had mistaken for a rain barrel was actually a bath tub. Or something like a bath tub, at least. The water was heated and circulated by a fire built in the middle of a tight spring coil of wide steel piping that was affixed to the side of the big barrel. One end of the spring tube would take in cool water from the bottom of the barrel, the fire would heat it, the water would rise to be fed back into the barrel, and more cool water would flow into the tube. Daiba considered this as brilliant as it was dangerous: Perhaps spectacularly.</p>
<p>While the tub could technically fit two skinny people in it, Daiba had taken only a necessary dip and left Harlock a long turn at it. He was clearly exhausted. Not that Daiba wasn't, but still. The heat probably wouldn't be any good for the big bruise on his back.</p>
<p>He'd forgiven Harlock from cooking, too. It was easy enough to just eat bread and drink milk. And more water. Lots and lots of water. Daiba lived in mortal fear of hangovers.</p>
<p>“Did you used to catch fireflies when you were a kid?” Daiba asked, tracking a cluster of silent green sparks floating around the eaves of the porch roof. He'd posted up on an overturned milk crate with the cabin's battered outer wall supporting his back. Beside him, just on the other side of the porch's railing, Harlock was enjoying his bath. With the bath fire died away to embers, he would have been barely visible if not for the lantern Daiba had carted outside.</p>
<p>“No,” Harlock said. He looked up to where Daiba'd been looking before he started watching him. “I had a friend who did, but I'd get upset trapping them somewhere they couldn't fly.”</p>
<p>Daiba's shoulders dropped and he considered hiding his face behind the roll he'd been picking at. Harlock, a sensitive little boy? It didn't feel wrong, but his face wasn't sure how to turn the emotion it made him feel into a proper expression.</p>
<p>“Your friend didn't make fun of you, did he?”</p>
<p>“He did, but he always let the fireflies go.” Harlock shifted and some water splashed over the barrel's edge. “Turn the lantern flame down and they'll come closer.”</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Daiba cranked the lamp's wick down to a slim orange crescent that hardly illuminated the body of the lamp itself. Gradually, he became aware of more and more green lights drifting downs from the eaves and trees. Had he just not noticed them before?</p>
<p>“Are you familiar with a planet called Bright Ring Firefly?” Harlock asked.</p>
<p>Daiba hummed. “Maybe. The name sounds like I've heard it before.”</p>
<p>“It was a kind of hospitality planet,” Harlock said. “Maybe your parents visited. Fireflies were very important to the people there.”</p>
<p>“They didn't eat them, did they?”</p>
<p>Harlock's laughter sent some fireflies that had come to rest on the drier parts of his hair spinning up into the night. Daiba beamed inwardly at the reaction. “No, culturally important the way that butterflies were important to old cultures on Earth.”</p>
<p>“Carrying the souls of the dead to Heaven?” Daiba asked. He regarded a pair of sparkles that had settled on the railing with grim curiosity.</p>
<p>Harlock didn't laugh at that. Which was good, because it wasn't a joke. “On that planet, it's said that every firefly is the soul of someone who's waiting to be born,” he said. “Do you think that Mazone have legends like that?”</p>
<p>“If they do, Shizuka's never told me. Besides, that kind of abstract thinking feels-”</p>
<p>“Uniquely human. But could you be Shizuka's friend if you were so different from her?”</p>
<p>Daiba knew that he couldn't. He also wanted to hold on to his belief that Shizuka was his friend because she was different and special. But she had told him herself that she would burn if she died. That she was one of the least special of her race. That she was built to be disposable and replaceable. Eventually, he conceded, “I don't think so.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The song Daiba starts to sing is a loose/artistically-licensed interpretation of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9CGsBr9jOA">Hamabe no Uta/The Song of the Shoreline</a>, an early 20th century Japanese folk song. Bright Ring Firefly is a real planet from the Galaxy Express 999 OVA Eternal Fantasy.</p>
<p>Thank you for your patience.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I had a choice between a short chapter I can upload now and a long chapter I'd have to wait another week to get finished. I decided to shoot my wad early so y'all would have something to read.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daiba's hand was a warm weight on his hip.</p><p>Daiba's chest was a heavy blanket over his back.</p><p>Daiba's absence was a not-unwelcome coolness as the birds outside the cabin window came alive in the rising sunlight.</p><p>Harlock kept sliding in and out of sleep, taking blind snapshots of sensation to mark the flow of time. He didn't want to move. The sheets and his temporary clothes were clean and dry, and everything else felt comfortably distant and unreal. He intended to take advantage of that feeling.</p><p>This was good. There was real quiet inside him for the first time in so long, and there was relief, too. That warm charge he felt for Daiba hadn't left with the fever. His feelings were real. He was not a captive. The fever and the frenzy were already lapsing into an amnesiac haze, the way the body forgets pain once it's passed.</p><p>When he next slipped in and out of sleep, the sun was warm on him and something was rattling the screen in the window. Harlock groaned and pulled the sheet over his face. Country living was only charming until varmints started trying to break in.</p><p>“Har! Lock!”</p><p>The sheet snapped like a sail when he threw it off himself and sat upright gawking at the little face grinning over the edge of the window. Was she standing on something to see so high, or had she gotten taller than he'd allowed himself to realize?</p><p>He set the fan aside and pulled the rickety screen out of the window so he could haul Mayu inside. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>“We hijacked!” Mayu declared, flinging her arms around his neck.</p><p>The smile on Harlock's face turned quizzical and crooked. “Did you, now?”</p><p>“Hitchhiked,” Kei said from the door into the main room. “And I thought you promised to play quietly outside?”</p><p>Mayu was laughing in a way that suggested a total absence of remorse. Kei was smiling. Just behind her, hovering around Daiba, Miime seemed totally at ease. There was no emergency. They'd simple done what pirates do and surprised him.</p><p>“And who did you hitchhike with?” Harlock asked as he set Mayu down.</p><p>“Your friend Wallis,” Mayu said. She smoothed out the front of the overalls Masu had sewn for her. She would need more and bigger clothes if she was going to live on the ship.</p><p>Harlock sighed, a weight coming off him. “Is that so?” So Zero was still alive. “Is he with you?”</p><p>“He's with the other men and Shizuka Namino, in town.” Miime had drifted over. Daiba was hanging back, clearly adrift. “They're preparing.”</p><p>“Apparently there's a big party or something,” Daiba said. He was busying himself with the stove, probably to have something to be doing.</p><p>“A festival,” Miime said. She draped herself on Harlock. “I'm quite excited. The alcohol here is so good, and there's bound to be plenty of it.”</p><p>It was that time of year on Liber, then. Harlock had forgotten about it entirely. It had been a long time, after all. “There's more to a festival than drinking, you know,” he said. “Even here.”</p><p>“I am a simple woman,” Miime said. “Novel food excites me, especially after a long time in space.”</p><p>“If you say so,” Harlock said, even if he didn't know himself what he would be doing at the festival besides drinking or herding Mayu around. “Have any of you eaten today?”</p><p>Daiba flicked a little water from the cold kettle at the stovetop. It spat and hissed at him. “I was going to take care of that.”</p><p>Harlock shooed him away, which he didn't protest. “I told you I would make something last night, and I... never got around to it. I'll do it now.”</p><p>“Captain, you can cook?” Kei asked.</p><p>Miime, having found one of the bottles of wine, settled on a creaky chair as elegantly as she could manage and started in on her own breakfast. “Harlock possesses many smaller talents.”</p><p>“I wouldn't call it a talent when the most complicated thing I can manage is baking bread. A man ought to be able to provide his own staff of life, after all.”</p><p>“I hate bread,” Mayu announced. She kept a respectful distance from the stove while she watched Harlock clunk a pan onto the top to preheat it. “All they ever feed you in school is bread.”</p><p>“What if I made you something that would make bread taste good?” As he spooned bacon fat into the pan, Mayu watched him with what could only be described as a look of someone preparing for betrayal. “Your daddy liked it.”</p><p>“I guess.” Mayu turned an empty beer crate over and plunked herself down on it, several inches closer to the stove.</p><p>Daiba came up behind her, hooked his bare foot in the crate's handhold, and pulled her unceremoniously back from the fire. “I like rice better, too, but there's no rice here.”</p><p>While Mayu ignored Daiba, Harlock went to the little trapdoor pantry for flour and the last of the milk. “Mayu likes noodles. Don't you, Mayu?”</p><p>“Noodles are the best.”</p><p>“It's good to see you interested in food again,” Kei said. “Masu was starting to complain.”</p><p>Harlock was stirring spoonfuls of flour into the hot fat and wishing there were more leftover sprigs of bacon in it. 'Interested' was putting it mildly. “I'm feeling much better, now. I've been well cared for.”</p><p>He didn't look over when he heard Daiba choke.</p><p>Kei brightened in a telling way. How much had Daiba confided in her? “I'm glad. We have some good developments to share, too, after you eat and change your clothes.”</p><p>“You brought us real clothes?” Daiba sounded ecstatic.</p><p>“Eat first.” Harlock shifted the pan to a cool spot on the stove and went to get dishes and bread to have the gravy with. The dishes were old, high-sided steel pans that might have been cake tins in a former life. He gave Mayu her portion – half of one of the long rolls that came in their food delivery and an underwhelming puddle of the gravy he couldn't be sure she'd accept – before anyone else got fed. He did keep the other half of her roll for his plate, though.</p><p>They all ate with their hands with few interruptions for conversation. Harlock wound up wolfing down three portions, which was fine in his mind because cream gravy makes a lot and the bread would've gone totally stale by the afternoon anyway. Daiba took advantage of the situation and offloaded his bread onto Harlock's dish, preferring to eat the gravy like cream stew by upending it into his mouth. Harlock accepted the bread without complaint. He couldn't remember the last time the simple act of filling up his stomach had made him feel so good.</p><p>When the food was all gone, Daiba immediately got up to pester Kei for his clothes and scattered off to change. He looked much more at ease in clothes fit for space than in what amounted to pajamas. Harlock couldn't blame him. After so many years, he couldn't feel like himself in clothes designed for relaxing in. His cloak was a comfort as much as it was decoration and protection. Like Daiba, he ducked into the cabin's one bedroom to change the instant he got a chance.</p><p>Miime had probably picked the clothes out for him in anticipation of the festivities. The jumpsuit was a bright, safflower red one that he almost never wore. The boots and gloves were the same as usual. There was a white cotton scarf to wear around his neck and poof out over the closure of the cloak, of which he only had the one. Someone – probably Masu, seeing as Miime couldn't sew to save her life – had mended the tattered edges.</p><p>“I hope you know that this won't be so clean by tonight, Miime,” he said as he stepped back into the main room. Daiba goggled at him from the far end of the room, where he'd retreated from the girls. Harlock tried to share a conspiratorial smile with him, but Daiba ducked his chin down to smile at the floor instead.</p><p>As if to illustrate his point, Mayu scrambled over to grip the newly mended edge of his cloak with her hands, still unwashed after a breakfast eaten without utensils. “It's fixed!” She hugged his legs. “Harlock, you look so handsome!”</p><p>He peeled her off and lifted her up. “Thank you. You need to wash your hands, or Masu will be sad you got it dirty after all her hard work.”</p><p>Mayu grumped and swiveled her gaze around the stark cabin. “Where, though?”</p><p>“There's a spigot by the porch. Go use that, please.” He set her down and was relieved when she took off without further prodding. He was less pleased when she ricocheted back into the cabin just a moment later, leaving the battered old door swaying ajar behind her.</p><p>“Your friend's here,” she announced. Harlock didn't need to ask who she meant. Zero appeared after a beat, as if on cue. He was holding his hat over his chest with one gloved hand, like a gentleman waiting for his invite into a lady's foyer.</p><p>Daiba situated himself just in the periphery of Harlock's vision. The boy's goggling eyes and knitted forehead stopped just short of screaming, 'Who's <em>this</em> one?' Harlock couldn't exactly blame him, but he didn't want to acknowledge Daiba's anxiety and make it real. It would be best – probably – to act normal. Or what counted for normal under the circumstances.</p><p>“Zero,” Harlock said, stepping out onto the porch to greet him. “I assume you want to talk to me.”</p><p>Zero took a step back to make space for Harlock. In his other hand, he held the top of a cane that clunked on the boards when he moved. Beyond that, the years hadn't changed him hardly at all. He still looked young enough to be a new father. The passage of time and the weight of a life's choices had not physically replaced him the way they had swapped Gozo Hoshino out for Faust.</p><p>“I'd like a walk, if you'd believe it,” Zero said. Harlock imagined Daiba hoving up behind him in the doorway, but he heard no movement to confirm the suspicion.</p><p>Harlock smirked. “And this isn't some ploy to finally arrest me?”</p><p>“Anyone who would bother to ask me to do that is pretty well convinced you're dead. For now, anyway.”</p><p>“It makes sense that the Mazone would let their toadies go on believing that.” Harlock stepped around Zero and off the porch. He headed for a break in the trees.</p><p>“So you're already aware of... that.” Zero's voice was already a little distant. The cane slowed him down considerably. It was probably a new addition.</p><p>“I know as much as I can know without going to Earth myself,” Harlock said. “And I've been preoccupied.”</p><p>“Yuki told me you'd been sick.” Zero picked along behind him. Harlock could hear him swatting stones out of the path with the end of his cane. “Have you recuperated well since Faust dropped you off on his way to Earth?”</p><p>Harlock hummed affirmatively. So Faust's ostensible kindness wasn't a secret between only himself and Arcadia's crew. “What business do you have talking to Faust?”</p><p>The path opened up after a few more paces, the spindly branches thinning out so that they could walk side by side without being clawed at. “Literal business, if you ask the brass.” He paused, probably waiting for Harlock to react. Then, he stopped walking and waited for Harlock to turn and look at him. “Not the usual business. Not the same as before.”</p><p>Harlock frowned. “Has time made you more tactful, or has it made you evasive? Say what you called me out here to say.”</p><p>“Time's backslid <em>you</em> into being a pushy brat.” Zero smiled and narrowed his eyes for effect, then he leaned on a stout tree trunk to take some weight off his leg. Harlock folded his arms, waiting. “I don't know how true it is, but the official line is that Earth is set to undergo a massive terraforming operation. Outside cities like Megalopolis, it would be even less hospitable to human life than it is now.”</p><p>“Naturally,” Harlock said, a wave of disappointment crashing down from his brain and draining through his teeth. “Plants have different needs.”</p><p>It would be the same as Miime's home, wouldn't it? And so many others. It only stood to reason that Earth's milk-fed elite would only take action on reforming the acid seas and tinderbox forests if there was some greater reward in it for them. Even now, they would only reform to the specifications of what amounted to investors.</p><p>“Needs that are irrelevant to mechanical bodies,” Zero said. He was looking up through the gaps in the leaves, flecks of sunlight painting his face. “Faust is on his way to do some observations on the first phases of what he calls a solution to the problem.”</p><p>Harlock grunted and shifted his weight. “And what is the price of a mechanical body that would enable one to go on living on Earth?”</p><p>“Service. Loyalty.”</p><p>“A mechanized army, courtesy of Earth.” Harlock wanted to spit.</p><p>“In service to Earth.”</p><p>“And to the Mazone and the Machine Empire by extension.” Buried anger clawed at the inside of his skull. There was no liquid heat to smother and slow his brain, so he felt the anger very brightly.</p><p>“Yes,” Zero said. He took a shiny metal case the size of a deck of cards from one of his pockets and opened it. “I can't get away with this at home. Did you ever start smoking?”</p><p>“It makes me sick. I drink and that's all.” Harlock came over to lean by him. “Who else is at your home?”</p><p>“Marina.”</p><p>“That's good,” Harlock said, the most he could manage as someone who couldn't quite comprehend cohabiting with one person under one roof, sharing one room and one bed indefinitely. “So, why does Faust share my whereabouts with you if he's on official business that I could spoil?”</p><p>“Faust thinks I'm no better than a dog because I continue to serve despite it all,” Zero said. He hadn't even taken a lighter out yet, just stared down into the open case in silent contemplation. Maybe he hadn't started smoking either, not in earnest. “He doesn't think I'd tell you anything sensitive. Or that I'm capable of finding out anything sensitive.”</p><p>Harlock offered no comment on the possibility Zero was on the same level as a dog. The thought had occurred to him in bitter moments even if he knew it wasn't fair. “What sensitive information do you have that you ought not to have, then?”</p><p>“How to get you and your crew to Earth without endangering anyone the new policy's scammed into enlisting. The Mazone are making it their new homeworld, after all.”</p><p>“But what are the odds that bringing the battle to them would endanger everyone who has to live on the Earth?”</p><p>Zero shrugged. “I'm not saying you have to do anything now. I'm just asking you to consider to offer of assistance.”</p><p>“I'll consider it after the party tonight,” Harlock said. He allowed himself to unravel some and took off up the path, back to the cabin. “And I'll get you drunk in the meantime. Marina is right. You shouldn't smoke.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sure, this chapter took entirely too long because my life exploded, but the next one is already over half done. I sincerely fucked up by trying to make them into one single chapter, and only realized I was struggling on account of that ~last night~. </p><p>I legit cannot remember the last time I was so tired. I feel some measure of relief after the election, but that only contributes to the feeling that all of my bones have fallen out of my skin. Oh, there's one reason to not be tense 24/7 now? COLLAPSE!!</p><p>Thanks for reading as always.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Liber's harvest festival was... strange, by Daiba's standards. The festivals he knew best were those held in Earth's cities. Those were, well, organized. They were, at their core, vast outdoor shopping malls made up of tidy booths set up in winding aisles. The marathon buying was broken up at regular intervals by performances or projection firework displays. Every event was scheduled, every attraction fenced off from the attendees, everything perfectly and blindingly lit until well past sundown.</p><p>By contrast, the festival the people of Liber held for their summer wheat harvest looked more like a vast and uncoordinated throng of people crashing like pachinko balls between beer stands and red faced musicians. Nobody was paying for anything. There weren't any lines. Probably. There might have been some convoluted queue system that Daiba couldn't understand. But probably not.</p><p>“It seems... lively,” he said. He looked over at Harlock to gauge the captain's reaction to the scene. Was he hoping for another glimpse at the young man who'd turned his gaze at him on the path to the swimming hole? Maybe. Either way, he didn't find him there. Harlock was as he usually was: Stoic and serene. He didn't even have Mayu around to take the edge off of him. Kei and Miime had whisked her away to parts unknown with promises of treats. Daiba didn't doubt it was part of a ploy to extend the alone time the crew had interrupted.</p><p>“They have every right to be excited,” Harlock said. “This is the culmination of months of effort for them.”</p><p>Daiba made a thoughtful sound that the crowd noise swallowed up. Scanning the crowd, he was beginning to notice some organization. The elders – Boudeaux included – were posted up under a brush arbor that just barely shielded them from the evening sunshine. They were picking strands from a tall pile of straw and wheat shafts, from which they were braiding animal shapes, spooky little dolls, and crowns that Daiba had mistaken for wreaths at first glance. Young men, some hardly more than boys, had crowded around to receive the crowns. Several of the ship's boys from the Arcadia were among the waiting throng. Tsuga, too, if Daiba had picked him out accurately. He was in human disguise – something Daiba didn't know Mazone males could achieve – and looked like a prototypical storybook prince with his pageboy haircut. He looked anxious and out of place in spite of this.</p><p>“What are the crowns for?” Daiba asked.</p><p>Harlock looked over and hummed as if he'd only just noticed the scene. “Boys celebrating for the first time as young men wear them so that everyone else will spoil them. There are other implications, but they're mostly opaque to people who are only visiting.”</p><p>“Good implications?” Daiba fidgeted, realized he was fidgeting, and forced himself to still.</p><p>The captain laughed. “Of course! Do you want one?”</p><p>“Do you?”</p><p>“I've had mine.” Harlock gave him a little push, which he didn't resist. “Go on.”</p><p>Daiba couldn't shake the suspicion he might wind up burned alive in an effigy if he put on one of the crowns, though he also couldn't place the origin of this suspicion. Besides, so many of the boys coming for their crowns were just that. Wouldn't it be unfair to sidle up as a fully grown man?</p><p>Harlock sighed and took Daiba's hand to lead him over. “I'll go with you, but I doubt they'll give me one.”</p><p>This was good enough, but Daiba was determined to act as if it wasn't. He huffed as they got in line – or what counted as a line – and tried to ignore the playful cries of “Cheater!” directed at Harlock. The desire to be swallowed up by a wormhole was returning, not because Daiba was embarrassed (which he was) but because he felt so fully out of place in the populated portions of Liber. He wasn't alone in that, either.</p><p>Tsuga filtered through the crowd to stand by them. He already had his crown. He wasn't wearing it, just worrying it with his hands.</p><p>“Fertility rite,” Tsuga said, not looking up from the crown.</p><p>Daiba bit back the urge to say, 'You're a weird kid,' because of course he was. He was an alien. Daiba was bound to find something weird about him sooner or later. Instead, he said, “How do you figure?”</p><p>“I was privileged to do some studying about human traditions, even if I'd never have gone to Earth myself,” Tsuga said. He flinched his shoulders in an anxious shrug. “We're all... males, and we've been given crowns of seed to wear as we're celebrated. It's almost crass, from a Mazone perspective.” He stopped fidgeting with the crown and raised his eyes. “Captain, are you well?”</p><p>Weird topic change. Daiba frowned. “Yeah. Why wouldn't he be?”</p><p>“I'm doing very well, Tsuga, but you don't have to worry about me.” Harlock had a hand on Daiba's shoulder all of a sudden. “How do you find life aboard the Arcadia so far?”</p><p>Tsuga's gaze darted away again, off into the crowd. “It's not easy to say yet.”</p><p>“You don't have to decide exactly how you feel right away,” Harlock said. “Do you feel safe there?”</p><p>“I think that I do.”</p><p>Tsuga seemed so small, now, for someone who'd shot his mother. Or a woman claiming to be his mother. Or anyone at all.</p><p>“That's what matters for now.” Harlock released Daiba so that he could turn Tsuga around and herd him back into the festive throng. “Go and enjoy yourself. We set sail again tomorrow, and there may not be real rest for a long while after that.”</p><p>Tsuga bumbled off into the crowd and was swallowed up before he could protest. Daiba was relieved to see him go, and not just as a relief from his weird behavior. They finished their time on line in silence, or would have if Boudeaux hadn't spotted them.</p><p>“Hey there, double dipper!” he crowed, swinging the crown he was working on in Harlock's direction. A few stray sprigs of grass flew off it and lodged in his beard. “I gave you yours the last time you were here this time of year, and I never forget! No do-overs!”</p><p>“We're here for mine,” Daiba said, heat coming out in the force of his voice. It felt important that he defend Harlock, even against jokes. He understood the absurdity of that feeling immediately, but it couldn't make him feel any regret.</p><p>Boudeaux was unbothered. He shrugged and flicked a finished crown their way, which Daiba reached out to snag out of the air on instinct. The stalks crinkled only softly under his fingers, still half green and flexible. “Have a fine time, son! This is the only one you'll ever get!”</p><p>Daiba mumbled his thanks and led Harlock away before he could get pulled into conversation with his old friend.</p><p>“What do you think of that Tsuga guy?” Daiba asked. His thoughts lingered on the Mazone boy even in his absence. “I'm not saying he's shady or anything, but he sure doesn't like to look people in the eye.”</p><p>“I believe he's not sure of his position relative to you.” Harlock took Daiba's crown and put it in place. “He can probably make sense of his relation to Kei or Miime than he can to you.”</p><p>Daiba ducked his head a little. The crown crinkled around his ears. “I don't see why.”</p><p>“He's the kind of person that his society doesn't value. So are you, but you clearly enjoy privileges and respect he's probably never known. He can't know how he should treat you, or even how he should expect you to treat him. It must be intimidating.”</p><p>“So because I'm a man who's treated like a man.”</p><p>“Closer to the way that Earth has decided it will treat men, surely,” Harlock said. The words effortlessly and without any malice made Daiba feel like a fool for even opening his mouth. “But how you can expect to be treated depends on a lot of things, many of which are beyond your control.”</p><p>Daiba scanned the crowd for an easy route out of the conversation. If he could sight any of the crew, that might have been easier. His mind was split into the two warring factions of being in an awkward conversation and feeling alone at a party. He chose to stay with Harlock. “What do Mazone think of their men, anyway? If they ever told you.”</p><p>Harlock was quiet, which made Daiba anxious and ashamed. “That we're good for helping produce children and not much else,” he finally said. “Even in that, I get the feeling they're seen as a grudgingly accepted necessity in the process. A ritual that celebrates his potential to be a father might excite him, now that I think about it.”</p><p>Heat bubbled up from under Daiba's collar too fast for him to will it down. So Tsuga's weird analysis hadn't been off the mark. “Why, though? Why the males specifically?”</p><p>“If I'd heard more, I could tell you the reasons they'd give,” Harlock said. “I wouldn't trust a word of it, though. Subjugation is its own motivation. Those in power choose the targets and terms after the decision to subjugate has already been made. Their reasons wouldn't stand up to logical scrutiny any better than the reasons people on Earth would give.”</p><p>Daiba was quiet. This was no comfort, which made it feel like an insufficient answer. If there was no real rationale for categorical cruelty, what did that mean for him? Had he suffered for no good reason as a weird kid waiting to fall for a girl and enjoy a normal life? How many times had he been cruel, even in small ways, to no real end?</p><p>“How can you be so sure?” Daiba found himself asking. What he was hoping to hear, he couldn't say.</p><p>“I've witnessed enough of great and small regimes to recognize the pattern of prejudice,” Harlock said, so patient that it made Daiba feel hot and trapped. “At the most extreme, they begin to devour themselves. I can't say what the Mazone will do now that they've achieved the caravan's goal of claiming the Earth, but I suspect there are already those among their population seeing rights that they enjoyed in the caravan eroding. If their dominion over Earthlings isn't enough, they'll be looking for new enemies.”</p><p>Daiba grunted. “Do you think I'm stupid?”</p><p>“I know you aren't.” Harlock put his whole arm around Daiba's shoulders and pulled him over. He was so warm, and he was so firm without bare skin to soften him, and Daiba instantly believed and trusted him. He wanted to curl into him and forget the rest of the universe.</p><p>“Is that Wallis guy around?”</p><p>Stupid mouth, ruining everything.</p><p>“I'll be meeting with him after I take Mayu around,” Harlock said. “After that, I'll come to the town center and see you.”</p><p>“I don't mind going with you and Mayu,” Daiba said. “It's fine.”</p><p>Harlock kissed the top of his head let go of him. He looked cheeky. “Enjoy an evening with zero responsibilities for once,” he said. “Don't you deserve it after three years?”</p><p>Daiba pulled the crown down on his head with both hands. He kind of wanted to pull it in half. “I said I don't mind.”</p><p>“And I said to go have fun.” Harlock grabbed him around the hips and pulled him close to suck the words out of his lungs with a kiss. Daiba's hair stood on end and he wound up staggering back on unsteady feet when Harlock released him. “There will be plenty of time to prove you can share my responsibilities.”</p><p>If he'd had the breath to make words, Daiba would have argued that it wasn't about that at all. It would have been a lie, but he would have said it. Instead, without breath, he just waved weakly and let Harlock slip into the crowd to find Mayu and the others.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And so as winter closes in on my hemisphere, the interlude on the summertime planet comes to an end. It will be back to the cold blackness of space and so on for a while after this.</p><p>I'm agog at how long this thing is and how long it's bound to be by the time I resolve everything. Which, make no mistake, I intend to do.</p><p>It's weird to have written another book-length thing after so long, especially this year. Contrary to what you might assume, I in fact have had LESS time to write this year than ever before. Between work and just trying to keep my goddamn life together I've been quite occupied. I choose to be impressed at myself and to take this as a reminder that I can create large, complicated projects if I give myself permission.</p><p>Thanks, as usual, for reading.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“He seems to be enjoying himself.”</p><p>“He's got every right to, doesn't he?” Zero said. “He's emperor of Earth.”</p><p>“Sure, he is.”</p><p>Mayu was conked out across his lap, so full of festival food and emptied of erratic child energy that the sound from the little holoprojection device couldn't hope to wake her. Zero had propped it up on a table in the Karyu's empty mess hall, the rest of the crew hard at work elsewhere or departed for the festival. It was strange to have been invited onto Zero's ship. Usually there'd be at least some show of reluctance to taking riffraff like him aboard.</p><p>The projection showed the former prime minister serving as the pivot point in the center of a long line of chorus girls, kicking along in a way that was at once exuberant and haphazard. His face was as red as the girls' glitzy bodysuits. He was either drunk or approaching the upper limits of his stamina.</p><p>A loud snap sounded and glittery smoke flooded the stage. When it cleared, the Emperor had disappeared and the girls covered red mouths and looked back and forth for him in pretend alarm.</p><p>Harlock grunted. “He does this often?”</p><p>“Not this routine specifically, but he hosts his little show every week.” Zero sounded so tired. “Would you mind if I muted this? He's going to talk soon, and I'm sick of his voice.”</p><p>Harlock raised an arm to half mast and shook his head. When the Emperor came tumbling out of a shimmery paper screen behind the stage and stopped just short of the stage's edge, his tie flung over his shoulder like a scarf, Harlock began to reconsider.</p><p>“What a super crowd we have here tonight!” the Emperor crowed. He blew kisses into the crowd with both hands and a tepid round of cheers rose up in response. The mic didn't catch the Emperor clicking his tongue at this, but a twitch of his lips gave it away. He flapped open palms up and down like a conductor with a gun to his head. “Come on, you know I've got good news. Pick it up, pick it up! Don't you ingrates want to live forever?”</p><p>A roar of applause rolled through the stadium, but less than half the voices rose high enough to match it. Regardless, this energy satisfied the Emperor. For the moment.</p><p>“That's more like it! I was worried I'd have to bust out some of my driving skills and really wow you to get the vibe up in here.” He pulled his necktie back into place and cleared his throat. “You better save some of that applause, because I'm not the one who's bringing you all this good news. I know, I know! But I've got a great guy here, just a really incredible guest who's just so passionate about our mission to guarantee long, healthy, productive lives for our most valuable citizens. It's been extraordinary to collaborate with him, and with the Galaxy Railways Company, on this unprecidented undertaking. He's got all the details on the lives you've got a chance to lead – forever! - and he's definitely ready to get out here and share with all these great people. As soon as he gets done making me vamp out here-”</p><p>An iridescent ripple in the air behind the Emperor betrayed Faust's imminent appearance, which spooked the sweaty little man straight off the stage and into the waiting crowd. The black, glossy shadow of Faust's form solidified in stark contrast to the spangled garishness of the shrinking chorus girls as the crowd lifted the Emperor away. They passed him from hand to raised set of hands, surfing him further and further from the stage. The energetic rustling muffled and distorted the feed from his lapel microphone, but it sounded vaguely like he was declaring, “Joke's on you! I wanted this!”</p><p>Knowing machine bodies couldn't feel fatigue, Harlock read Faust's expression and posture as exasperation.</p><p>“I changed my mind. Turn the audio off.”</p><p>Zero obliged him without comment or hesitation. Even on a live broadcast, the closed captioning for a machine was guaranteed to be accurate.</p><p>Faust began in silence.</p><p>“I understand that you have come here at great expense, and I will not waste your time with empty pageantry.” He pivoted to face the paper screen. It flickered and shone bright blue for an instant before displaying across its entire surface – excepting the small space burst out by the Emperor's entrance – a scene of unblemished natural glory. A misty waterfall featured prominently, as did the dozen or so trim young people lounging on the rocks nearby. It was a splendid, flawless, false image. The crowd whooped for it in a way that Harlock was sure made the Emperor envious. Wherever he'd been carried. “It's a common misconception among the people of Earth that we with mechanized bodies don't understand the hearts of human beings, but I assure you that we do. How easily people forget that we were born into bleeding bodies, the same as any of you. The bodies that carry our human hearts were born from that same humanity, from the universal longing to eliminate suffering and death. We all long for paradise, for the ultimate reward for our toil. We long for relief and for sanctuary.”</p><p>Harlock grunted, eye narrowed.</p><p>“And we long for a return, don't we? Some part of us misses the Earth that was, even if we were all too young to have seen it. Even those with mechanized bodies crave this, and that is why we engineered this mega-colony as a recreation of the old Earth's finest qualities, with living seas and clear skies. What's more, it is a world of true freedom and equality. Never again would you go hungry while your neighbor eats, or suffer sickness for lack of money while he lives in comfort by accident of birth. The needs of mechanized bodies are simple and pure, and the bodies we offer to you are fully standardized. As honored veterans, you would never want for upkeep to your bodies. Your home may be forfeit, but you can lead peaceful and joyous lives on a home built for you, eternally. You can reach Arcadia, truly, through your-”</p><p>Harlock didn't need to tell Zero to turn the feed off.</p><p>“There's something off with those bodies they're handing out,” Harlock said in a low voice.</p><p>“I don't doubt it, but what tipped you off?” Zero filled one of the mugs they had at hand. The big bottle of beer they'd carried in from the festival was nearly empty. “Or is it just well placed distrust?”</p><p>Harlock took the mug. He'd lost track of which identical mess-issue mug was 'his,' but it hardly mattered. “If the bodies were legitimate, wouldn't the Emperor have one?”</p><p>“Who's to say he doesn't?”</p><p>“He doesn't like himself enough to have one built in his image.” Harlock emptied the mug. The beer was just barely cool, but that was fine. It was good, and a void that demanded food and drink had opened up now that the void demanding sex had sealed. It was like his body had been burning through every ounce of energy to weather the effects of the poison and expected immediate repayment. “Whatever they're selling, he doesn't want it.”</p><p>“It's worrying for me, honestly,” Zero said. He swirled the bottle as if judging whether it was worth pouring the rest for himself. He set it back down. Apparently not. “Around half the crew here are mechanized. I don't know if I want an influx of people who sign on just for the perks.”</p><p>Harlock shrugged. “The military has gotten by for centuries on making promises to desperate people. Is your dedication to Earth bigger than some poor man's dedication to sending money home?”</p><p>“Speaking of home,” Zero said, leaning back in an uncharacteristically casual way. He looked ready to tip right out of his seat. “I promised you a route to Earth.”</p><p>Harlock took the rest of the bottle for himself. He found himself wishing the beer were sweeter and heavier, and the deprived sensation delighted him. Just the thought of swallowing sweet liquid had nauseated him for months. “You did do that.”</p><p>“I know you're familiar with how the Mazone had outposts and monuments established on Earth, but did you know that they planted so many that they've forgotten a few?”</p><p>Harlock stopped mid-swallow and coughed a little. He didn't speak, but he let the pause and the look on his face prompt Zero to continue.</p><p>“When I say they've forgotten, I mean it. This ship has gone as far as attacking it and encountered no resistance, not even surveillance.” Zero dropped his voice. “It's a portal, a skipping gate inside one of their pyramids. Even if the range at which I can get it to function is short enough to make it close to useless, it's a back door to Earth.”</p><p>“How are you skipping through a gate attuned to Mazone ships?”</p><p>Zero cast a thoughtful glance around the mess hall as if considering the ship itself. “Earth's little merger with the Mazone came with some technological perks. The issue with using gates is a software one, not one related to the ship's planet of origin.”</p><p>Harlock bristled. “So you're suggesting I introduce something like that to the Arcadia's computer systems?”</p><p>“It doesn't have to be something that like, maybe.” Zero had his hands up, the white of his gloves spread out in something like surrender. “But consider it. You'd have a Hell of a time getting within range of Lafresia's forces without having to cut through thousands of Earthlings, otherwise. The gate lets out just west of the Ogasawara Islands. Even inside Earth's atmosphere, the Arcadia could be on top of her palace within minutes. It would practically be-”</p><p>“An assassination,” Harlock said. He gave Mayu's shoulders a ginger shake and shifted her into a seated position on the bench. “I'll consider it.”</p><p>By this, he meant that he would ask the computer its thoughts. The Arcadia had a heart of her own and deserved a say in whether the risk was worth the reward.</p><p>“Is it fireworks time yet?” Mayu asked. Just barely awake, she had her priorities all lined up. Children could be admirable that way.</p><p>“No, not for another hour or so. It has to be very dark.” Harlock grabbed both her little hands and hoisted her off the bench, lightly swinging her around so that she squeaked and came back to the floor on wobbly legs. “Say goodbye and thank you to our friend first, and we'll go get your party clothes from Miss Masu.”</p><p>“Thanks, Wallis. Bye bye!”</p><p>---</p><p>Mayu collided with Harlock's knees and grabbed his hand without a word of explanation. She wanted to go to the dance floor Liber's older men had set up in the town green. She'd obviously been very careful with the white tunic dress Masu had made – or maybe simply reserved – for her, because it was spotless compared to her dusty shoes.</p><p>Harlock was not so easily moved. “Mayu, have you seen Daiba tonight?”</p><p>“Yes.” She tugged his arm harder.</p><p>“Don't pull, please.” Harlock slipped gently from her grasp and crossed his arms. “Where is he?”</p><p>“He's playing in the dirt alone.” She huffed and smoothed the front of her dress. “Will you dance with me, please?”</p><p>“I will, later,” Harlock said. He reached down and ruffled her hair just for the sake of watching her pat it back into shape. “First, I want to talk to Kei and the others. And didn't you just spend all afternoon with me? If you spend the whole festival with me, do you think other people might miss you?”</p><p>When hurt flitted across her features, Harlock only made himself smile brighter. After what they'd endured together, it was only right to rebuff her clinging after a point. If he indulged her without restraint, she may never learn to feel safe without him. Or assured of his safety, for that matter.</p><p>This was a good opportunity to do that, wasn't it? Somewhere loud and cheerful that, for one day and one night, existed at a complete remove from the hardships presented by life in space. She could be distracted in such a place, kept occupied by happy and hopeful things. So Harlock hoped.</p><p>“But you will dance with me before the fireworks start?” Mayu asked. Fine. Bargaining beat a tantrum any day.</p><p>Harlock wanted to drop down and hold her, even lightly. “I promise I will, but we should spend time with our friends first. The night will be over before you even realize, so you should consider all the things you want to do before we set off again in the morning.”</p><p>Harlock had not counted on the sheer absurdity of trying to negotiate with a child while what amounted to a brass backing band tootled along in the background. The silliness, which he felt very deeply, undercut the small drama.</p><p>“There's nothing else I want to do,” Mayu finally said, sidling closer to him. “Please?”</p><p>“I won't feel bad if you spend time with someone else,” Harlock said. It was getting dark fast, and his patience was going with the daylight. “I'll be fine. Didn't Maji want to show you how the fireworks are rigged? You both seemed so excited about that.”</p><p>Mayu shifted. “Yeah.”</p><p>It figured that that would prove effective. Mayu may not have loved machines the way her father had, but the method and inner workings of things could hold her interest. She'd become a beloved tyrant among the crew, claiming their ample free time for her own so that she could explain and demonstrate how to play her ocarina.</p><p>Harlock dropped down on a knee and turned her by her shoulders. He pointed through the crowd to one of the many canopies erected around the square to keep the sun off drinking revelers. A sizable band of crewmen had been camped out there since the early afternoon. Maji was among them, cackling along to some story Harlock couldn't hear.</p><p>“He's not busy right now. Why don't you ask him to go show you, and he can bring you back afterward?”</p><p>“Do you think he'd want to dance with me, too?” Mayu asked.</p><p>“I can't imagine he'd say no.” It felt cruel to point out that she'd be taller than Maji before long, so he didn't. “You're excited to dance, aren't you, Mayu?”</p><p>She nodded and started to bounce away. “Mhm! I'll be back, okay?”</p><p>Harlock straightened up and waved. “I'll be waiting.”</p><p>He carried on, searching for Kei through the crowd. He could have reached her radio easily, but this was more satisfying. Some part of him needed to move through this space again, like a ghost. To his perception, no evidence of the times he'd visited Liber with his lost friends remained. The outside world had moved on. The present had covered over his memories like grass covers a grave.</p><p>Boudeaux was making his rounds of the dance floor's perimeter, the same as before. Boudeaux had been old and bearded the whole time Harlock had known him, so he'd hardly changed to Harlock's eye. He had the same camera, or the same model of camera, as he always unpacked for the day. To hear Boudeaux tell it, he brought it out at the sunset hour to take advantage of the day's second golden hour. Harlock always assumed he had a habit of forgetting until the last possible moment.</p><p>There were photographs of him somewhere, surely, even if he'd lost his own copies within weeks of receiving them. They'd seemed less important back then. There were photos of he and Tochiro in the crowns the people of Liber had sweetly forced on them, and one notable snapshot of Tochiro trying to climb Harlock and steal his off his head.</p><p>There was one of the two of them with Gozo, who'd accepted the crown even though he was the oldest among them and had a wife and a half-grown son hidden away somewhere.</p><p>He didn't want that one back. He didn't particularly want Boudeaux to come near him with that camera, either.</p><p>Sometimes, like now, he would get angry at how quickly he could spiral into that dark feeling. He was a black hole moving through the scene of fairy light strings and peeking summer stars, suddenly.</p><p>“Captain!”</p><p>That voice sliced through him in a sweet, painful way. Daiba was upon Harlock before he could turn and find him, hands gripping and tugging at his fingers and arms to flip him around and embrace him with a fierceness that took him completely by surprise.</p><p>“Come dance with me,” Daiba said into Harlock's chest, not looking up.</p><p>Harlock swallowed. “All right.”</p><p>He let Daiba lead him. Or, rather, he found himself powerless to resist the light grasp of Daiba's hand, suddenly infected through contact alone with the youth's enthusiasm. The sudden shift left him breathless. He'd become the tail of a comet cutting through the crowd.</p><p>“I don't really know how,” Daiba admitted once they came to a stop. He had both hands behind his back, and when they emerged again an instant later they carried something colorful that caught the lights. He had to lean on Harlock and stand on his toes to put the crown in place. What little Harlock saw of it as he struggled to place it was bulkier and brighter than the braided wheat ring that he'd taken from the old men. It was shot through with new green grass and studded with the heavy heads of bright blue and yellow wildflowers.</p><p>Playing in the dirt alone, hm?</p><p>“How to dance?” Harlock blurted. He reached up to touch the crown and was disappointed that he could hardly feel its intricacies through his glove.</p><p>“Not really,” Daiba muttered. He took Harlock's hand down and held it. “Don't take that off.”</p><p>Harlock pinked. “I wasn't going to.”</p><p>“Good.” He leaned in to Harlock and swayed with him, searching for the rhythm in a song they'd joined halfway through. “I worked hard on it.”</p><p>Harlock let a hand slide down to the middle of Daiba's back and guide him. This was enough. If Daiba managed not to step on his feet, they didn't need to perform any recognizable dance. “I can tell. Thank you.”</p><p>Daiba blew out a sigh and leaned in harder, sliding their bodies together as he craned up to kiss Harlock's jaw, then his mouth, fingers tangling in his hair and the flowers as if to hold them in place. Harlock sighed through the kiss and closed his eye, accepting the unspoken message in Daiba's grasping gift.</p><p>'I love you.'</p><p>'I'm returning this to you, whether you like it or not.'</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyDEswHuQss</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is officially novel length, so that's terrifying and exciting. I will write bigger and cooler and more thankful and more emotional notes next week.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harlock's habits had changed since the crew recovered him, or so it seemed to Daiba. For instance, he hardly ever took his meals in his quarters anymore, instead spending meal times with the rest of the crew with Mayu not far from sight. Most evenings, he would beckon Daiba over to join them. Daiba still needed beckoning, and though he wasn't proud of this he couldn't shake the conviction that he must wait for the captain's attention. It wasn't easy, considering he could be right at Harlock's side and jockeying for his attention over people who kept coming over to chat with him. It was Masu that evening, fawning over him.</p><p>“I'm just so relieved you finally got over being fussy about my cooking,” Masu was saying. “You know you're the only one I ever let get away with it.”</p><p>Daiba ducked his head over his tray to hide his smile.</p><p>“You were the one who decided I would never eat squid,” Harlock said. He'd put away at least two helpings of the tart-sweet squid salad Masu usually made when she was in a summery mood. Or when there was excess squid in the cold storage to be used up. It was a good accompaniment to sake and beer, which made it a big hit with most of the crew. It usually disappeared fast even if most of the kids wouldn't touch it. Daiba liked it fine.</p><p>“Now, don't get defensive,” Masu said. Daiba lifted his eyes a little to watch her waggling her kitchen knife... playfully? At the captain and those seated nearest to him. She sniffed and grasped the knife's handle like a dainty maiden with her handkerchief. “I really am happy. Everybody's been so worried, but nobody sees how much food you send back to the kitchen like I do. Seeing you eat the things you used to hate makes me happy. You lot are like my kids and grandkids. I haven't got anybody else.”</p><p>Harlock had his hands up as if unsure where he ought to place them. “Masu, I'm fine, really. I'm better than fine. I'll eat anything you bring me.”</p><p>Before Daiba could insert himself into the situation, Mayu slipped from her seat and put her arms – carefully – around Masu. “Don't cry, Miss Masu.”</p><p>Masu took one hand off her knife just long enough to pat Mayu's head. “I'm just so happy, dear. Happy tears don't come around often enough as it is.”</p><p>“Happy you can offload every last item on this ad hoc menu onto somebody,” Dr. Zero crowed from the next table over, where he'd been eavesdropping between swallows from a bottle shared with Miime.</p><p>Daiba reflexively swung his arm out to reel Mayu back onto their bench when Masu's head swiveled around. The tears? Gone. “Don't act like you're not relieved, you booze-bloated bilge rat.” She waved the knife at him. He looked unimpressed.</p><p>“Miss Masu,” Daiba said, having pushed Mayu off on Harlock so they could be distracted by food together. “The doctor is just joking.”</p><p>The doctor sprung up to stand on the bench, one hand on the table's top to give him some stability. “The only joke here is feeding us squid and cornbread and pumpkin soup on the same night.”</p><p>“And the captain loves it, which is proof he's well again!”</p><p>“I've been weighing him,” the doctor shot back. At this point, Daiba had disengaged from their spat. It was nicer – and easier – to hang back and watch the gentler conflict of Harlock trying to turn Mayu around on pumpkin soup. “I don't need to watch him eat nonsense meals to know he's doing more than fine.”</p><p>“You calling my cooking nonsense?”</p><p>Daiba sidled a little closer to Harlock, which wasn't hard with Mayu penning him in from the other side. “Maybe we should give them some space to fight it out.”</p><p>“That may be best,” Harlock said. Daiba released his anxiety over having asked in the first place.</p><p>“Yeah. Absolutely.” Daiba was sweating. With so many people around – people he knew, especially – it was difficult to feel comfortable acting at all familiar with the captain. He still wanted to throw up just remembering hauling him out to dance, sometimes. Like the butterflies returning with a vengeance. “Um, we could-”</p><p>“Come to the computer room with me.” Harlock scooped up Daiba's hand spoon and all as he got up from the bench.</p><p>“Can I come?” Mayu asked, swinging her legs over the bench.</p><p>Harlock waved her off. “You promised Miss Masu you'd clean the rice pot for her, didn't you?”</p><p>Now they were stopped dead while Harlock negotiated with her. She puffed up her cheeks. “Yes.”</p><p>“Keep your word to her, and then you can come join us if you want.”</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>Obviously not put off by her snotty tone, Harlock flashed her a little smile and then took off with Daiba in tow. How much of their interactions consisted of pulling one another from place to place? He would follow Harlock willingly anyway, yet they were always grasping for one another. Daiba still didn't trust that he held the same magnetism that Harlock did, but why would Harlock bother?</p><p>Daiba couldn't bring himself to ask. If he did ask, that might mean the end of this strange, sweet behavior. He couldn't risk that.</p><p>With some distance between them and the clamor of the mess hall, Harlock slowed his pace and let some slack form in the tether of their arms. Daiba flexed his fingers, tightened them.</p><p>Was it wrong, even a little, to want to do these small things that the world hadn't set aside for people like them? Daiba didn't think so, but the implanted anxiety persisted. It persisted, and it insisted that he wasn't entitled to things like picnics and hand-in-hand walks.</p><p>“You're so tense when I take your hand, sometimes,” Harlock said. He tugged Daiba closer so that they were practically leaning on one another as they walked.</p><p>Daiba paled and looked at his boots. “It just takes me by surprise, that's all,” he said. “You never seemed like the kind of person to do that.”</p><p>Harlock's arm rocked against Daiba's shoulder when he shrugged. “You seem like the kind of person who could use it. I don't sing for just anybody, either. Only you and Mayu.”</p><p>“O-oh.” Daiba slipped away when they reached the elevator between levels and leaned on the wall with his hands behind his back. “And you don't mind? Now that things are back to... normal?”</p><p>“Daiba.” Harlock didn't have to reach far to touch his arm – the elevator wasn't big, and all of Harlock's limbs were long. “If you're afraid this will end suddenly, you aren't alone. Would it help to hear that I wouldn't choose to end it?”</p><p>“Yeah. God. I don't mean to be weird about everything.”</p><p>“The circumstances are weird. You're behaving appropriately.”</p><p>Daiba fidgeted. Their awkward elevator ride was cut short by the door swishing open, the computer room humming at the end of the corridor.</p><p>“You really... worry about that?” Daiba asked. Even now, thinking of Harlock as afraid of anything made him a little queasy.</p><p>“I do, because it's happened before.”</p><p>The computer room hummed far down the corridor, like a threat. Daiba's body dragged up the sense memory of a ballistic round striking his back, and he felt the weight of responsibility for his own life settle heavily on him. It stifled his words, made them crowded and clumsy on the way up his throat, and the rest of their walk to the computer room was silent.</p><p>Kei was already waiting for them in the moody half-darkness that defined the Arcadia's most sacred place. This was just fine. Tsuga was with her, though, which felt less fine to Daiba. He didn't dislike or distrust Tsuga, as he felt the need to remind himself, he just found him. Strange.</p><p>“Captain.” Tsuga flitted over to them – after looking to Kei for some sign of permission – and looked Harlock up and down. “How are you?”</p><p>“I'm well, Tsuga, thank you.” Harlock put a hand on Tsuga's shoulder to direct him out of their way. Gentle, but firm. Like with Mayu. “Have you been busy?”</p><p>“Oh, no.”</p><p>“He has to be commanded to stop,” Kei cut in. “And he'll be returning to his cabin to rest after we're done here.”</p><p>Tsuga wilted. “Yes.”</p><p>“What's he here to get done?” Daiba asked. It was a significant improvement on his brain's first draft: 'What's he doing here?'</p><p>“We hope he can be of some help,” Harlock said, approaching the computer. It whirred in acknowledgment. “Out of everyone aboard, he's the most likely to have valuable input if we choose to move forward.”</p><p>Sweat prickled on the back of Daiba's neck. “Move forward with what, exactly?”</p><p>“Disguising the Arcadia from Lafresia's forces,” Harlock said. He had one hand up on the surface of the computer's core, leaning in. “Or trying to do that, at least.”</p><p>Daiba looked over at Kei and frowned. “We haven't had to worry about her scanning us for at least a year. We handled that.”</p><p>“We could handle more than that if we could trick their automated security measures into overlooking us entirely,” Harlock said. He wasn't looking at any living person in the room. Instead, Daiba could tell that he was making his case to the computer. “When I last spoke to Zero, he gave me the location of what amounts to a back door into Lafresia's palace on Earth. It would enable us to bypass breaking the Earth's sphere of defense. All those people press ganged into serving as a buffer for Mazone forces Lafresia actually considers valuable, they wouldn't have to be endangered.”</p><p>Some of those men weren't pressed into service, but Daiba kept that to himself. The conviction of those determined to lay down their lives for a cause bent on destroying them wasn't less sad, and as much as it frustrated him it didn't make them less worthy of the lives they signed away.</p><p>“So, what's the catch?” Daiba asked on a long exhale. There wouldn't be any discussion if there wasn't any catch.</p><p>“The catch is collaboration of a kind,” Harlock said. He let his hand drop down and away from the computer's glossy surface. The computer hummed as if in thought. Lights chased each other around its core. Harlock interpreted these signs and shared nothing with Daiba or the others. “Zero's ship and some others in Earth's fleet use technology that contain digital flags identifying those ships as cleared to pass through gates like the one we mean to access. It's technology gained through the Mazone occupation of Earth.”</p><p>Daiba could feel his hair bristling on his scalp. “Two Mazone things is about as much as I'll put up with on this ship.”</p><p>“Daiba,” Kei hissed. Daiba shrunk in on himself. He'd said it before he could stop himself.</p><p>“Whether or not we make the attempt isn't for you to decide,” Harlock said. He took a single step back from the computer and went to the one workstation that banked up against the core. “Come here, all of you.”</p><p>They did. Daiba made Kei into a buffer between himself and Tsuga, who seemed satisfied with that arrangement. Harlock worked his hands over the keys for a moment before the computer took over and flashed a file list under an intimidating header:</p><p>COMPONENTS FOR INFILTRATION OF LIMBO GATE</p><p>PARTIAL</p><p>UNTESTED</p><p>“Looks like the computer is way ahead of us,” Kei said. Whether she was impressed or unnerved, Daiba couldn't tell.</p><p>Harlock, for his part, was smiling. “The Arcadia's will works quickly,” he said. “My friend, you have always had an impulsive streak.”</p><p>“What did it do?” Daiba asked as he leaned down to scrutinize the file list. It wasn't long, but it held a mystery he wished he could tease out just by reading out the names.</p><p>“If I had to guess, I would say the computer helped itself to the relevant files when the Karyu brought us back. It would have had the whole night to consider and plan after Zero brought it up.”</p><p>Daiba's eyes narrowed. There were only so many ways a spaceship many, many miles off could conveniently overhear that conversation. “You recorded him?”</p><p>“Of course, it was pertinent professional information.” Harlock was smiling in a way Daiba could only describe as 'shittily.'</p><p>“Does he know you were recording him?”</p><p>Harlock shrugged.</p><p>Kei muscled her way closer to the screen. “Breaches of trust aside, we need to know if you're willing to work on this.”</p><p>“And why is that even in question?” Daiba asked, leaning back from her a bit. There was a certain intensity in the air he didn't like.</p><p>“Because it would mean working with Shizuka and Tsuga, seeing as they're the only ones with any kind of insight about the technology involved.” She folded her arms as if in parody of Harlock. “And it's obvious you don't trust Tsuga.”</p><p>Tsuga had his eyes cast down at the floor. Daiba couldn't stand to look at him very long; it just made him feel even more like a jerk holding everything up for a grudge over nothing.</p><p>“The captain said it himself,” Daiba said. “Whether or not we do this isn't my call to make. If you need me, I'll do it.”</p><p>He didn't have to like it. He would just keep consoling himself with that reminder.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I promise something actually exciting will happen next chapter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I WANT TO SEE MY LITTLE BOY (here he comes~)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Holy Lord, I am closing in on a whole year spent writing this.</p><p>This story and the people reading/encouraging it have been companions to me over the course of one of the most difficult years of my adult life, and it's been so valuable. </p><p>I've experienced many changes to my life over the course of writing this story, and while they aren't all negative even the positive changes entail a level of new responsibility that I don't feel prepared to satisfy. </p><p>Both my parents died within 6 months of one another this year. While I terminated my relationship with both of them years ago and don't necessarily need to be consoled I do have a responsibility to a younger brother who lived closer to them and is stuck settling their estate because his black sheep big brother - me - washed his hands of it long before it became an issue. I also find myself doing a lot of unbidden meditation on those relationships, even if I don't meditate with any actual sadness or longing. It's disturbed my internal landscape, so to speak.</p><p>I also started a new job at which I feel very settled and confident after several months. It's in a field I care about but don't tie to my identity the way I do with art, so maybe that's it. I work full time and enjoy real benefits that have come in handy several times. I have something like material stability for the first time in my life.</p><p>This story has been a constant that I needed. It's provided a place for my brain to drift when I need to feel productive and build a little space that makes staying in reality possible. I'll be writing it for a good while longer, and I hope you're getting half as much out of it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It's times like this I wish I was a bigger guy,” Daiba said, his voice thin and unsteady under a joking veneer. He was holding Harlock from behind as they lay in the too-narrow bed in Harlock's cabin. In a bigger bed, Harlock might not have woken him.</p><p>“No,” Harlock said. His heart was still hammering in his chest and sweat had chilled his face. Worse, his body had flooded itself with so much adrenaline that he felt sick. “This is more than enough.”</p><p>He couldn't even remember the dream that had catapulted him out of his deep sleep, which meant he hadn't had much to tell Daiba when he inevitably asked what was wrong. It had been hard not to say that the only thing wrong was Daiba being there to deal with the aftermath. Hard, but right. It wasn't true. The warm presence and gentle compression on his shoulders made everything so much less wrong.</p><p>“It's early. Want some coffee?”</p><p>Harlock's stomach rolled. “No.”</p><p>“Water?”</p><p>Anything that so much as <em>tasted</em> anything but very, very cold sounded awful. “There's peppermint tea in the little refrigerator,” he said. He patted Daiba's arm lightly before dragging himself into a sitting position. “For hangovers. But for this also.”</p><p>"Weird to imagine you getting hungover, of all people."</p><p>"It can happen," Harlock said, even though it hadn't happened in some time. He gave Daiba a little nudge to get him moving to the chilled cabinet where he kept certain wines and other things best taken cold.</p><p>Daiba came back a few moments later and handed Harlock a glass of the tea to sip on while he slouched against the headboard.</p><p>"You're sure you're okay?"</p><p>"My nerves are all ratcheted up and it's getting into my stomach, that's all." Harlock made as much room for Daiba as he could. When Daiba filled the space, he leaned on him.</p><p>"Is there anything else I can do to help?" Daiba looked as eager as he did concerned.</p><p>"You've done plenty," Harlock said. "Feel free to go back to sleep."</p><p>"Want a backrub?"</p><p>Harlock grimaced. "I'd rather not lie down."</p><p>"That bad?"</p><p>"Exactly that bad." He took a few swallows of tea and shut his eye against the light gradually feeding into the cabin. It was an artificial dawn conceived as a way to maintain human internal clocks set by the Sun, but he didn't appreciate it much at the moment.</p><p>"Do you want the doctor?"</p><p>Harlock shook his head. "He'd only tell me it's nerves. This is a consequence of sleep for me, from time to time. And a consequence of sharing a bed with me."</p><p>"Don't call it that," Daiba said. "Is it weird that I kind of like it, even if I'm a little worried you might throw up on me?"</p><p>Harlock smiled against the rim of his glass. As much as he wanted to drain the glass in a few gulps, he wouldn't be able to tolerate the cold weight it would leave in his stomach. "You're so romantic."</p><p>"Hey, I'm trying my best."</p><p>“You're doing very well.” Harlock let his head tip to one side and rest lightly on Daiba's shoulder. “And you don't have to worry. It's only a little worse than the other times, and I'm perfectly capable of weathering that.”</p><p>“I'm still gonna worry if it's worse,” Daiba said. His fingers worked their way into the back of Harlock's hair. “I think everyone but you is kind of paranoid right now.”</p><p>“It's only worse because I have more on my mind and it comes to find me in my sleep.” As a test of his endurance, Harlock drew a long breath into the bottom of his chest and waited for his stomach to roll. When it didn't, he drank some more. “It's fine, Daiba. Trust me.”</p><p>Daiba sighed. “It's not like I don't trust you or something. You just have kind of, uh, a different idea of what fine even is.”</p><p>“What's your idea of fine?” Harlock's fingers were starting to go slack around the cup, so he leaned away from Daiba just long enough to set it and the half swallow of tea inside it aside. Soon, he would probably just fall back to sleep.</p><p>“It sure isn't waking up sick at five in the morning.”</p><p>Harlock was sliding down Daiba's side, slowly. It was so easy to do this, easier than he had ever allowed himself to believe. Believing that he could have this again would have hurt him, because it would mean waiting and longing for it. “I don't usually get sick. But you know what it's like to get so worked up that your stomach ties itself up, don't you? It's like that, but it takes me by surprise because I don't always remember what woke me.”</p><p>The sheet rustled up close to Harlock's ear as Daiba pulled it up and over their bodies. He'd already closed his eye.</p><p>“I used to get really bad dreams after my father was killed,” Daiba admitted. “Sometimes I would wake up and stay up until I started hearing other people moving around in the corridors. Then I'd come out and act like nothing happened.”</p><p>Harlock brought an arm up and around Daiba's chest to hold him lightly. “Well. Now, if that happens and you're here, we could stay here together.”</p><p>“And nobody has to pretend nothing happened.” Daiba said, voicing Harlock's unspoken thought.</p><p>Could it really be so easy?</p><p>Rather than ask what he wondered, Harlock said, “Thank you for the tea.”</p><p>“No problem,” Daiba said. “Go to sleep.”</p><p>“Hm.”</p><p>And he did sleep. They both did, long enough that when an alarm woke them they didn't stumble or sway rushing to get dressed and respond to the alert. Harlock was already at his desk radioing the bridge while Daiba pulled on his boots.</p><p>“Captain to bridge. What's got the klaxons going off at this hour?”</p><p>“Sorry, captain.” It was one of the new additions to the crew, and Harlock was still learning to identify them by the sound of their voices alone. This one sounded young and anxious. Harlock could hear the flinch in their voice and knew right away that they'd need training out of that. It did him no good to have even one among his crew afraid of him. “There's a small craft tailing us at low speed and it-”</p><p>“You've done well to be so alert to a possible ambush,” Harlock said. Patience wasn't a strong suit of his when he'd been woken from very necessary sleep. “I'm on my way now, but patch through to me directly next time you have suspicions no one on the bridge with you can address. The radio here makes more than enough noise to wake me and me alone.”</p><p>“And me,” Daiba put in. Grogginess clung to the walls of his throat and made the words sound thick, but he was up and dressed and moving around. He'd be fine.</p><p>“Yes, captain. Understood.”</p><p>“Has the craft made any move to attack or evade detection?”</p><p>“No, captain.”</p><p>“No action should be taken until I come assess the situation, then. Standby.”</p><p>“Aye, captain.”</p><p>---</p><p>The small craft, as the boy at the bridge's radar station had called it, was so damaged that its dented and peeled outermost shielding panels made it look like a crumpled paper crane flipping through space. For all anyone knew, it could have been nothing more than a dead ship pulled into the Arcadia's wake.</p><p>“And there's been no communication attempt?” Harlock asked, scrutinizing the overhead screen with folded arms.</p><p>“There are signals, but the data we're receiving is incomplete.” Kei had come to the bridge by the time Harlock and Daiba arrived, ready to support the youth filling in for her over the night watch. “There's no telling if they're intentional, either.”</p><p>“Bring it aboard,” Harlock said. He turned to leave the bridge, set on making it to the hangar in time to greet anyone who might pop out of the battered crane. “I'm curious.”</p><p>“Are you curious, or are you bored?” Daiba was at his side already. It was nice to not be asked permission.</p><p>“I'm perfectly capable of feeling both things at once,” Harlock said. “One often feeds the other. Come, let's see if it's been worth the diversion.”</p><p>They found a crowd in the hangar. Word traveled faster than two men on foot, and Harlock imagined many of the Arcadia's newcomers had come aboard in much the same way as the ship that skidded in behind the space wolves that had towed it in. For them, this held a different set of possibilities than it did for Harlock. How many were still hoping and waiting for a reunion with their families, or just with others from their homeworlds? Even a body riding the ship to its soul's last destination would suffice for some of them, he was sure.</p><p>The Tokagan girl with the close-cropped hair, the one Harlock remembered as Nem who was still learning to fly, lowered herself down from the cockpit of her fighter and ran over to Daiba with her helmet under one arm. “Two alive inside. One dead. That's what the close range scans say.”</p><p>Murmurs rippled through the crowd. A few pressed closer and stopped when Harlock held out an arm to direct them away.</p><p>“No resistance?” Harlock asked.</p><p>Nem shrugged and didn't look him in the face. “It's not as if they could in that thing.”</p><p>Daiba took Nem by her shoulders and pointed her for one of the exits. “You did good, Nem. Go call the sick bay and tell them to send some people down here just in case.”</p><p>“Aye, sir.” And she was gone in a flash.</p><p>Harlock approached the craft with a hand on the grip of his gun. It was more habit than distrust. Maji and some of the other engineers came over with their tools to buzz the caved entry hatch open and peel it away. It came away like the skin off a tangerine. Inside, there was darkness and the sound of movement.</p><p>Tetsuro Hoshino hadn't changed in the obvious ways that others had, since Harlock had last seen him. Limbs a little longer, maybe, but little else had changed in what now amounted to nearly five years. Some people were constant like that.</p><p>He didn't recognize the other boy, but he clearly meant something to just two of the new Arcadians who'd clustered to greet the ship, the ones who were pale blue like he was. They ran over and said nothing. They pressed close to one another, two pairs of large, slitted eyes staring into the hole in the ship. They were a boy and a girl and looked very alike. Brother and sister, from what Harlock had been told. They were like Nem in that they tended to avoid him.</p><p>Tetsuro's eyes locked on him and the bright overhead lights caught on the wet shine rising over them. “Harlock! You're alive!”</p><p>“I am.” Harlock's hand left his gun and extended to him. “Come.”</p><p>Tetsuro only held the body slumped across his shoulder more tightly. The blue boy was alive, even if his breath crackled in a way that told of internal damage. The thin line of Tetsuro's lips trembled. “You have to help my friend.”</p><p>“We will.”</p><p>“He's not human.” The words sounded like an apology. “I don't know what to do.”</p><p>Harlock was practically crawling inside the shell of the ship with them now. “He has red blood. I'm sure there's something we can do.”</p><p>---</p><p>The boy from Andrado was a mammal, which made everything so much less complicated than it could have been. A chest tube solved the collapsed lung and a sedative dosed to match his weight would keep him from worrying at it until he'd recovered enough to hear reason.</p><p>“Never had to operate on the little ones before, but it all looks pretty straightforward.” Dr. Zero was in an uncharacteristically sober and sharp frame of mind as he clicked through scans of the boy's body. “I could probably cross reference with the cat and be just about right.”</p><p>“That's not funny.” Tetsuro hadn't left his friend's side for a moment and was very intent on him, but he did listen.</p><p>The doctor shrugged and shook his head. “It's not a joke, so it better not be funny!” He reached under the console for a small bottle with thick, heavy walls and tossed it at Tetsuro. “How old are you now?”</p><p>“Seventeen?” Tetsuro's tone made it clear he really wasn't sure. He fumbled with the bottle and wound up clasping it to his chest to keep it from crashing on the floor or hitting his sleeping friend in the face.</p><p>“That's old enough. Have a sip and relax a little. Everything's as good as handled.”</p><p>Harlock shook his head and came to stand by Tetsuro at his friend's bedside. They passed the bottle between them exactly once before Harlock left it to Tetsuro. The bitterness didn't agree with him at the moment.</p><p>“Who was that dead man on the ship?” Harlock asked.</p><p>“A Machine Empire stooge who got in my way.”</p><p>Harlock frowned. “You were retreating to save your friend?”</p><p>“Everything went bad fast,” Tetsuro said. “The Empire's captured Maetel, but I don't think they'd actually hurt her. Not yet, anyway. But they'd kill Meowdar, and I couldn't let that happen.”</p><p>“I understand. How long have you two been separated?”</p><p>“A little over a month.” Tetsuro sounded distant and drowsy. The panic that had supported him was leaving. He would collapse soon. “Since we saw the Ghost Train.”</p><p>Harlock turned to the door so that no one would see the darkness that settled over his features. “I see. Feel free to rest before you say more. You and your friend are safe, and you won't have to worry about taking on the Machine Empire on your own.”</p><p>“Really?” Tetsuro asked, brightness returning to his voice.</p><p>“Truly,” Harlock said. He paused in the doorway to offer the boy a confident smile. “But rest now. You've achieved something admirable in saving your friend, and you deserve it.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>At long last, I claim another third POV character after knocking off the first. I need, as I did before, a character from off the Arcadia who's been around for the past 3 years and change of events and can provide some additional context that people aboard the Arcadia might not necessarily have. It was a toss-up between Zero and Tetsuro, and in the end I just love my son more than Zero.</p><p>On the topic of Zero, a note on his name: Zero is one instance of me adopting the spelling present in Zack Davisson's translations. I don't do that too often, and this is simply because I've written these words one way for so long and I can't be bothered to change my ways when I'm doing this for fun. However, in the case of Zero, I just like Wallis better. I don't think I need to justify it with more than that. Besides, consider this: Imagine literally anyone calling him Wally.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Arcadia was quieter than Tetsuro had imagined it would be, especially around the medical bay. Especially when most of the crew had gone to bed and left the night time skeleton crew to look after the place. It made it hard to sleep. The silence and stillness made his brain loud and hot like dirty, burning oil popping in a pot over a fire built too hot.</p><p>He had already gotten up for water from the sick bay's sink several times and the itch to move around and distract himself kept up its assault on his mind. He had tricked himself, in his desperation, into forgetting that even Harlock was human like he was and that action wouldn't and couldn't be taken immediately.</p><p>Meowdar was still sleeping even with the sedative worn off, so talking to him to pass the time wasn't an option. And staring at him only made Tetsuro more anxious.</p><p>He was hungry, too, which was a bigger problem than being bored. It definitely wasn't as easy to just sleep through.</p><p>If Meowdar was sleeping, what could go wrong if he went foraging? The ship's systems - a little bitty fraction of them, at that - were monitoring his condition continuously anyway.</p><p>He didn't need to stand guard around the clock.</p><p>And hungry guards didn't make good guards anyways.</p><p>As it turned out, Tetsuro was very persuasive when he was hungry. When he had to convince himself to go get some food, at least.</p><p>"Sorry, Meowdar," he said, softly, to his sleeping friend as he padded to the door. He left his shoes behind, not for the sake of sneaking out but because he'd already kicked them off to stay comfortable. Some days he hated shoes as much as baths. And forget breaking in new shoes. He felt lucky he'd only ever had to go through that a couple times.</p><p>There was a lady in the hallway. He noticed her immediately because she glowed in the dimmed lighting, and the first thing he noticed was that her pretty face was only half there.</p><p>It evoked gross, gut-deep memories that he hated to feel.</p><p>"Who are you?" he asked. He knew she couldn't be Shadow, hoped she wasn't even like Shadow, but there was no way to put that into his voice. So the question sounded like an accusation.</p><p>"I am Miime," the pretty lady with half a face said with her not-mouth. She swished over to him and didn't seem bothered when he recoiled a little. "I am the woman who has sworn her life to the captain of this ship."</p><p>Tetsuro swallowed. "You're his wife?"</p><p>"Oh, no," Miime the half-faced lady with no mouth to talk with said. "I owe him the debt of my life. He is dear to me, but he's no husband."</p><p>Tetsuro didn't understand, so he just nodded blankly. He still didn't understand relationships between adults, even being mostly grown up already.</p><p>"Harlock tells me you are also his friend," Miime said. "You're more than welcome to move about the ship. Consider this your home for as long as you need."</p><p>"Oh." Tetsuro felt himself redden and tried to ignore it. He looked around Miime and down the hall. "Any idea where I can get more food?"</p><p>The tray the cook left for him when he'd refused to leave his friend's side to eat wasn't cutting it anymore. It almost made it worse, as if the recent memory of food had reminded him how to be hungry to the point of distraction.</p><p>Miime's empty almond eyes narrowed and bowed up in something like a smiling expression. "Oh!" She took his hand and he fought with his impulse to tear away from her. "Would you join me for a snack, then? I would ask Harlock, but he hasn't accepted my invitations lately."</p><p>"Oh. Sorry." And she wasn't his wife, right? "Maybe he's busy."</p><p>"That is likely." Miime obviously wasn't comforted by this. Her willowy form wilted. Even her hair seemed to lose volume.</p><p>"I mean, you know, that's not gonna be forever. If he's your… Friend, he'll come around to hanging out with you again when he's got time."</p><p>Why did he always feel like he had to comfort any random woman he encountered? It kept getting him in trouble.</p><p>Miime sighed. Or made a sighing sound, whatever process of her weird body made that noise. “Yes. But you didn’t come to hear my troubles. You’re hungry, aren’t you? Come, we’ll eat together and you can tell me your own troubles.”</p><p>Tetsuro swallowed thickly. His mouth was already watering at the mention of food. He let Miime lead him away into the half-dark of the ship’s nighttime. He had to step over sleeping sailors a few times, and over big empty bottles more than a few times. Was life on the Arcadia really this carefree? It looked like a good deal to Tetsuro, but it also introduced the possibility that this strange lady could just lead him off somewhere without anyone noticing.</p><p>Anxiety made way for excitement once they reached the Arcadia’s kitchen. The rice cooker was as big as a wash tub. And empty, much to Tetsuro’s disappointment.</p><p>Miime lifted him away from the pot’s edge by the back of his jacket. She was shockingly strong.</p><p>“There’s nothing hot, I’m afraid.” She plunked him back down on the floor near one of the huge double-doored refrigerators and opened it up. She took out a bottle for herself and a steel box with a plastic lid for him. It was so cold that he was happy to be wearing his gloves. “Do you like noodles?”</p><p>Tetsuro swallowed and grinned. “More than pretty much anything.” He dragged himself up onto one of the counters to sit, and grabbed a stray pair of cooking chopsticks to eat with. Nobody would mind, probably. He’d already dug into his meal by the time he realized Miime was just lazing around and drinking. How, without a mouth? He didn't know and was afraid to ask. “You’re not hungry?”</p><p>“Hm?” She set her drink – which, again, was an entire bottle that must have held two liters – down and shrugged at him. “Oh, my people take our food energy almost entirely from alcohols and sugars.”</p><p>A weight left Tetsuro. “So you're an alien.”</p><p>He didn't say the part about being relieved she wasn't a machine out loud. Some machines ran on alcohol, didn't they?</p><p>Miime took a long swallow her... meal. “I was born on a planet called Jura. After its conquest at the hands of the Mazone, I am the last. To my knowledge, at least.”</p><p>“Oh.” Tetsuro swirled his too-long chopsticks to make a whirlpool in the sauce and noodles he still hadn't finished. It wasn't easy to talk and eat at the same time. “I'm sorry. My friend is like that, too, kind of. He's not the only one left, though.”</p><p>“The boy from Andorad. Yes.” Miime got up from her slump at the counter and brought Tetsuro a little sealed bottle from one of the fridges. “Here. I know humans enjoy liquid calories as well.” She watched him open and consider the milk, then sat back down. “I'm certain you've already seen the two others of his people here.”</p><p>Tetsuro nodded and slurped more noodles. He swallowed hard. “The kids, right?” He hadn't exactly met them, but he knew they were hanging around outside the sick bay most of the day. “How'd they get here?”</p><p>“They came with an older brother who died to bring them here. I won't tell you the whole of a story that isn't mine, but that's the part you need to know if you want to understand why they crowd around your friend the way they do.”</p><p>“What are their names?” All of a sudden, Tetsuro wanted to know everything about them and let them run his life for the rest of his time on the ship.</p><p>“The boy is Nyaja and the girl is Maomi.” Miime took another long drink and sighed. She tipped the neck of the bottle in Tetsuro's direction. “You're sure you won't join me? I feel so rude keeping all this to myself.”</p><p>Tetsuro hunkered up with his box of noodles and shook his head. “Nah, I'm good. I guess the captain usually drinks with you?”</p><p>“It would seem he's lost his taste for it recently,” Miime said with real sadness. “He won't say so, but I can tell. The last time we drank together was at a party, weeks ago.”</p><p>“Jeez, you already said he was busy.” Tetsuro tipped the corner of the box into his mouth and shoveled the remaining food in. He swallowed hard. “I don't drink when I have stuff to get done, either.”</p><p>He didn't drink much at all, couldn't really handle the way it made his skin burn, but she didn't need to hear that.</p><p>“That may be so.” Miime rested her chin on folded hands and closed her bright eyes. “I know that I'm being selfish and there will be time for drinking with my friend again. You're here. That should speed things along.”</p><p>“How do you figure?” Tetsuro slid off the counter and went to the fridge where Miime had gotten the milk. He pulled four bottles out. When Miime didn't stop him, he took a bag of rolls and a package of beef.</p><p>“You're a strong and capable man who doesn't cave to adversity,” Miime said. “Harlock has told me so.”</p><p>Tetsuro's face flashed hot and he drew his mind away from his embarrassment by busying himself at bundling his stolen food up in the improvised bag he'd folded out of his cape. “I guess. I mean, I try to be. I don't exactly have a choice.”</p><p>“You do.” He could feel Miime's gaze on him without so much as shifting his eyes to glance at her. In that split second, the woman he'd written off as a strange and needy drunk seemed very powerful. Her presence filled the room. It pinged off the metal surfaces and made Tetsuro's hair stand up. “Everyone does. You could reduce your exposure to pain by severing your loyalties to friends in need. You could still abandon your human life, or life altogether, and forget pain forever. The ultimate exit to pain and joy both is always there, waiting like an open cistern. But you resist. Harlock does, too. You two are alike in that way.”</p><p>“Oh.” Tetsuro shouldered his bag and started to sidle for the door. “I guess that's true.” He couldn't seem to look up from the floor. “I, uh, should get back to my friend. And the kids. They're probably hanging out over there again. They kind of come and go.”</p><p>Miime hummed. “Have you spoken to them?”</p><p>“No, but I'm gonna.” He patted the bag. “If they're skittish about me, maybe I can bribe them.”</p><p>Miime's eyes smiled. “The doctor was telling me how angry you became when he compared your friend to a common housecat. Are you doing the same now?”</p><p>Tetsuro bristled. “Hey, everybody likes free food!”</p><p>“That much is true,” Miime said, tipping the bottle into her not-mouth again. She sighed. “That much is true.”</p>
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<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's a smutty, character-driven interlude for y'all before I commit to celebrating this story's anniversary with more plot developments.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I gotta say, it's nice to touch you through your clothes and not feel them slide around under my hands so much.” They were seated on Harlock's bed and Daiba was running his hands up and down Harlock's chest and belly while leaning on his back. This way, he could feel Harlock's heartbeat and breath. He could soak up his warmth like a snake on a rock.</p><p>The start of a laugh made Harlock's back rumble against Daiba's chest. “Were you that worried?”</p><p>“Not as worried as Miime,” Daiba admitted. He teased the hem of Harlock's shirt free from under his belt and pulled up. Harlock obliged him by lifting his arms so it could be peeled over his head. “You were always so skinny to begin with, is the thing.”</p><p>Harlock slid around Daiba to lie on his back and beckoned for Daiba to come lie next to him. Daiba did, tucked under his arm. Harlock's skin was already a little tacky and overly warm. He was getting excited, and that revelation made Daiba excited. “According to the doctor, I've put on six pounds since we got back. So you have nothing to worry about.”</p><p>“Is that healthy?”</p><p>“He seemed happy, so I assume a little more than a pound a week is perfectly fine.” Harlock kissed him. The way he caught Daiba's lower lip between his teeth for a second before pulling back made a bolt zip up Daiba's back. “You didn't come here to fuss over me, right?”</p><p>When Daiba swallowed, he could hear the muscles in his throat working. The pulse between his legs was becoming undeniable. “No, I guess I didn't.” He slung one leg around Harlock's thigh to grind on him and sighed.</p><p>Harlock shivered. His hips lifted and the slide of his thigh between Daiba's legs made Daiba's cock throb. “Feeling greedy this time?” Harlock asked, one hand working through Daiba's hair.</p><p>“Maybe.” Daiba let his fingertips trail on Harlock's taut, hard stomach and stopped just above the waistline of his pants. “I still wanna eat you up so bad sometimes.”</p><p>He could feel Harlock kill a laugh that tried to start in his chest. He couldn't blame him. Horny brain made for bad statements. “Feel free.”</p><p>“Thanks for the treat,” Daiba said, grinning, before burying his face in Harlock's neck to suck a vivid red mark into it. Harlock's head rolled to the opposite side to give him access. “I wanna get good at using my mouth on you.”</p><p>“Looking to practice tonight?” Harlock asked. He ran his hand down Daiba's back, tracing his spine through the tight material of his suit. Why did that feel dirtier with his clothes all the way on?</p><p>Daiba's grin broadened. “Yeah.” He trailed his lips and teeth and tongue down from Harlock's neck and laid his tongue flat over one of Harlock's nipples before fixing his lips around it. It felt so dirty to do that to a man. It felt even filthier when Harlock jolted and moaned, his hand tightening into a fist on the small of Daiba's back. Daiba pulled back to assess Harlock's wide-eyed expression. “Oh? That's not a secret weak spot, is it?”</p><p>“It might be.” Harlock looked down as if to question his own body. Daiba followed his gaze. His nipples had instantly stiffened into pert, rosy points that looked as tender as Daiba's covered erection felt. Shallow shivers rippled over his skin and he looked back to Daiba as if in expectation.</p><p>“How's this?” Daiba took the same bud between his thumb and forefinger and rolled it, suddenly very aware of how rough the finger pads of his gloves might feel. Harlock whined and pulled back even as his body arched upward. “It doesn't hurt, does it?”</p><p>“No.” Harlock's heart pounded under Daiba's resting hand. “I think it's- I'm not touched there often. It's unfamiliar.”</p><p>“Should I stop?”</p><p>Harlock shifted to pen Daiba in with his legs, inviting him to lean in and press against him. “I'm curious, now.” He rolled his hips so that their cocks ground together through layers of material. Daiba whimpered. “Keep going.”</p><p>Needing no other encouragement, Daiba latched on to Harlock with his mouth again and savored the sound he made. He flattened himself against Harlock to better feel the way that sound made his chest vibrate. He closed his teeth – just lightly – and got a very pointed tap on the back of his head for his trouble.</p><p>“<em>That</em> hurts.”</p><p>Daiba laid his cheek on Harlock's chest, right next to the wet mark he'd left there. “Sorry.”</p><p>“It's all right.” Harlock smoothed Daiba's hair and raised his hips again. He sighed. “Move more. I want to feel you.”</p><p>Daiba's hips pressed forward all on their own, seeking Harlock's warmth and the hard, straining form in his pants. Pleasure rippled up his back and he made a shivery sound. “With our clothes on? That's fine?”</p><p>“It's fun sometimes.” Harlock took one of Daiba's hands and guided it to one of the stiff points on his chest. “No more biting, though.”</p><p>Daiba huffed. He didn't even bite hard. “Right.” He pressed into Harlock again, grinding on him, and stopped an instant later. “Laundry, though.”</p><p>“I've gotten very good at taking care of suspicious laundry.” Harlock locked his legs around Daiba's hips and their cocks pressed together so hard that Daiba saw stars. “Get to it, or I'll flip us over.”</p><p>“Don't. You're still way bigger than me.” Daiba had to speak through unsteady breaths, which made the plea sound more legitimate than it was. Just the off-sync thrum of their pulses was enough to take his breath and cloud his brain.</p><p>He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to this. After the the primal introduction to sex he'd had, this was still too much to handle. Maybe it was Harlock that was too much to handle.</p><p>“I was joking, of course.” Harlock took one of his hands and brought it up to press his cheek into it. Warmth penetrated the material of Daiba's glove and traveled up his arm in a wave that made his shiver.</p><p>His hands were still so big compared to Daiba's. That made having him on his back sexier, somehow. It turned the way his body arched up in need feel like an accomplishment, or an incredible gift.</p><p>“Of course.” Daiba blew out a long, slow breath and took his hand back. He peeled his gloves off and pitched them over the side of Harlock's bed. Under his bare skin, Harlock's chest felt hot and electric. Rolling his nipples between his fingers, Daiba was suddenly struck by a memory of picking tiny, hard, barely-pink strawberries and getting shouted at for spoiling the plant's unripe harvest.</p><p>What a weird thing to remember.</p><p>Or maybe nipples and his mother were a natural match for unfortunate memory visits during sex.</p><p>“I love you,” Daiba sighed. It was becoming his go-to alternative for apologizing for things Harlock wouldn't understand or expect an apology for.</p><p>Harlock's chest rose and fell in shallow breaths under Daiba's hands. His hips rolled. “And I love you. Ah...”</p><p>“I'm gonna use this against you from now on, you know.” Daiba was grinning, his breath hissing through his teeth as he tried to keep quiet and focus on finding a rhythm with his hips. The friction inside his own clothes was way more distracting than it had any right to be.</p><p>A little whine pushed past Harlock's lips, but he wasn't making words anymore. He had a forearm thrown over his eyes and his mouth pinched shut with his lower lip tucked under his teeth. Daiba wasn't prepared when, a moment later, Harlock's body bucked up under him and his cock started pulsing so hard and so fast that Daiba could swear he felt it right against his skin.</p><p>He was cumming, so hard and so suddenly that his eye had snapped open as if in shock at himself. It stayed wide while he caught his breath.</p><p>Daiba felt powerful. Sore and unsatisfied, but powerful.</p><p>“That good, huh?” Daiba's grin made his cheeks ache.</p><p>Harlock returned the smile, though his was a little more wobbly. “You look proud of yourself.” He pushed on Daiba's chest. “Sit back and I'll show <em>you</em> something new.”</p><p>Daiba allowed himself to be quickly and expertly stripped. The virginal impulse to cover up was well and truly gone. Having Harlock appraise his stiff, wet cock made his heart race with excitement instead of anxiety. He did his own appraising when Harlock turned around to wiggle out of his ruined pants and kick them into a corner. A lot of his outfits left little to the imagination, but Daiba still wasn't tired of the sight of his bare ass.</p><p>Especially with cum wetting his thighs and making them glisten.</p><p>Especially knowing he did that. As immature as it was, it made Daiba think, 'I won.'</p><p>“Get up against the head of the bed and bend your legs at the knee,” Harlock said. He crawled toward Daiba, his hair obscuring his face.</p><p>“S-sure.” Daiba did as he was told and shivered at being so exposed. Showing <em>his</em> ass was a different experience altogether and he still didn't care for it.</p><p>The captain didn't waste any time explaining what he planned to do, which was typical. He took the bulk of Daiba's cock straight into his mouth. Blowjobs weren't as plush as society had promised Daiba, but having his dick sandwiched between soft tongue and firm, smooth upper palate had its own charms. He'd mostly gotten over his fear that Harlock would accidentally bite him.</p><p>Mostly.</p><p>“Captain.” It was becoming a pet name. He threaded the fingers of one hand through Harlock's hair and cupped his palm against the back of his head. It was more comfortable to do this, now. He didn't feel bad doing it. Harlock always sighed when Daiba did this, his breath tickling Daiba's belly.</p><p>He was so intoxicated with the experience that he barely noticed Harlock sliding a hand down his wet shaft and tucking a thumb behind his balls. Barely. He did notice, and he yipped a little. In response, Harlock just smoothed his other hand over Daiba's belly and chest as if to soothe and assure him.</p><p>“Okay. Okay.”</p><p>His hips were already quaking at the unfamiliar touch, and when Harlock pressed hard against the spot under the base of his cock they tried to lift themselves off the bed. It felt <em>weird</em>, but in a disarmingly nice way that wiped his brain of any knowledge of the process that made it feel so good. All he knew was the sensation of having his dick attacked from both ends and a distant recognition of why Harlock might like being fucked so much.</p><p>The knot of pressure swelling up in the pit of his stomach felt so tight, pumped up by the kneading behind his balls and hurting to explode down Harlock's throat. He forced his hands to fall away from Harlock's hair. He'd feel so bad if he yanked on it, even if Harlock might not mind.</p><p>Harlock pulled back on him until his lips wrapped just under the rim of his cockhead and his tongue had nowhere to go but around and around in tight circles that made Daiba's toes curl.</p><p>“Captain. Captain-” His pleas cut off in a strangled sound when Harlock pushed hard with his thumb and wrapped the rest of his hand around the base of Daiba's cock. Daiba's hips bucked up hard and caught Harlock off guard, pushing his cock all the way to the back of his throat.</p><p>Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back catching his breath while his brain fought to come back online. The warm heft of Harlock's body cozied up to him, tucked under his arm with an ear resting on his chest.</p><p>Okay, maybe it was more of a draw.</p><p>Daiba drew his arm tighter around him. It was fun to pretend to be big. “Mind if I stick around for a while?”</p><p>“You don't need to ask to spend the night, you know.”</p><p>“Not the night, just...” Daiba's brain was still all fuzzy. Sleep would help. Just a little sleep. “That sounded bad. Sorry. What I mean is I'm gonna get up really early to do more work. Not, like, creep out right after you fall asleep or something.”</p><p>“You're really throwing yourself into this.”</p><p>“It's important, right?” Daiba figured it wouldn't go over well if he said he didn't like leaving Tsuga alone with the computer. Even he knew it was irrational. He trusted Shizuka, didn't he? And his grudge had to be getting old by now, even by people who'd understand. And besides-</p><p>Something warm and wet splashed onto Daiba's chest and he froze.</p><p>“Woah, hey.” Daiba forced his arms to lift and lay over Harlock. All of a sudden, his heart was trying to batter its way out of his chest. Of all the things to panic at. “It can wait. I'm sorry, okay? I'll stay. I'm sorry.”</p><p>Harlock returned the embrace, his wet face pressing harder into Daiba's chest. “It's not like that,” he said. He didn't... sound? Upset? At least? “I'm so happy to have this. It's just harder for my body to hold any feeling lately. I feel brittle, somehow.”</p><p>Daiba tried to swallow his heart back down. “S-sure. I know you can't help it, but maybe say something before you start crying next time. You can just say you're happy. Doesn't that count?”</p><p>Harlock sighed. It tickled Daiba's skin. “You may be right.”</p><p>“I'm still staying.” Daiba's own voice felt strained, now, and he could feel himself pouting. His mind had become suddenly crowded with memories of his parents with their separate beds and bedtimes, of the loneliness he had found himself projecting onto his mother's peaceful face during the long days and weeks they'd spend alone in the apartment. Putting that kind of loneliness on someone he loved, even the chance that he might do that, filled him with a sickly shame.</p><p>Harlock lifted himself up on his elbows and regarded Daiba seriously. “I'm not going straight to sleep, you know. I have work of my own to do.”</p><p>“Don't care.” Daiba recaptured him with both arms and pulled him back down. Maybe he was being a brat, but it didn't matter. He was being a brat in the interest of not being a brat, and at the time that was justification enough. “I'll sit on your lap while you work. You'll never get rid of me.”</p><p>“Please don't.”</p><p>“What if I always wanted to?”</p><p>Harlock pressed his face against Daiba's chest again, and Daiba could feel the staccato rhythm of his suppressed laughter. He was left feeling, once again, like he had won.</p>
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